


Night Weaver

by Kibbers



Series: Night Weaver 'Verse [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff and Angst, Lakeside, Lighthouses, M/M, Night Weaver!Gabriel, North Carolina, Road Trips, Small Towns, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Stars, Storms, Stranded, Writer!Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-19 00:35:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5949382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kibbers/pseuds/Kibbers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newly graduated Sam Winchester has Restless Heart Syndrome and no match to the soulmate tattoo taking up space on his wrist, the only known cure. Not to mention his opportunity with a publishing company is slowly slipping into nothing, no inspiration in sight. He sets off to find somewhere to call home and winds up on the doorstep of a secluded lighthouse, seeking reprieve from the storm raging above, where a man with golden eyes spends his nights studying the stars. As he gets to know the man, Sam starts to think, just maybe, the storm isn't the only problem kind-hearted Gabriel will solve.</p><p>Or the one with the writer who finds inspiration in the stars, the man who weaves the speckled sky each night, and the home they find in each other</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay here it is, my submission for the Sabriel Big Bang 2015! Firstly I need to thank the absolutely wonderful [ TeenyTinyTony ](http://teenytinytony.tumblr.com/) for the amazing art that goes along with this fic! I mean, it's stunning! Secondly, I need to thank the ever-wonderful [ SupernovaCharlie ](http://supernovacharlie.tumblr.com) for being an amazing beta! [ TheBlessedBear](http://theblessedbear.tumblr.com) as well for betaing for me early on! You guys are awesome and I couldn't have done it without you!
> 
> This is easily my longest fic yet and my first big bang, so let me know what you think below! I thoroughly enjoyed writing this one and I hope you all enjoy reading it :)
> 
> This fic is being translated into German [ here](http://www.fanfiktion.de/s/56c4cd62000118b230671c07/1/Nachtweber-Ubersetzung-) if anyone is interested! Go leave the lovely translator some love because she's awesome!

Sam Winchester had Restless Heart Syndrome. Ask anyone near him and they could tell you all about it. Hell, the grocery store bag boy at the little twenty-four hour shop down the road with the glassy eyes could go on about the outbursts and the jittering hands and the stumbling-more-than-walking gait. The man that came in when the moon was high and the city was sleeping. The man who seemed to rattle. To thrum with energy, hands shaking as he handed over his crumpled dollar bills and rocked back and forth on his heels, eyes just as bloodshot as his own. The man that showed up at hours fit only for brand new parents and teenagers and the lonely roamers of the world, fluorescent lights blurring with the moonlight outside the glass doors. Sleeplessness came with the territory and the title of lonely roamer had long since stamped its way across Sam’s forehead. Besides, the grocery store was soothing in the nighttime, filled with so few people. It was another world by night.

Sam had tried to ignore it, as the syndrome came on. It was like a rattling, like a white noise lost beneath the sounds of his everyday life. At first, he could ignore it. He could go to class and date a bit and come home to eat dinner with Dean. Life as normal. Soon, though, it was all he could hear and there was no way he could ignore it any longer as its symptoms took over his life. Restlessness, jitteriness, a hollow feeling that made his chest tight and heavy as his heart beat inside. It was happening again, now, legs too restless to let him sleep. Sam couldn’t find a reason to go to the store this time, though, so he stood over the heat of the stove instead. Anything to get out of the silent darkness of his room.

“Sammy?” Dean grunted from the darkened hallway, sleep dragging his voice down to a grumble. Sleep held no sharp edges and it took a while to shake it from their voices as they woke. Especially when the sky was still night-dark.

Sam looked up, eyes burning and face warm from the sizzling pan. The pancake in the center of the worn gray pan started to black at the edges and sent up a smoke signal. Sam ducked his head, the smoke starting to crawl down his throat. It itched and he held back the urge to cough the blackness from his lungs. “Sorry.”

What was he supposed to do, he wanted to yell. Sit in his room in the dark, wide-awake, just waiting for the sun to wake his brother and with it some sort of distraction? The hours were longer than they seemed and he could not fill them alone. Reading was too stagnant, working out too tiring to keep up for eight hours. There was little else he could do, shut in his bedroom. There was no way to make Dean understand.

Sam braced for the yelling. The daggers and sharp edges that would come alive as Dean flung them at him, anger waking him up in an instant. They’d already done this once this week and it was only Wednesday. The shouting from the night before had shattered the windows and sent the earth shaking. Or, so it had felt beneath Sam’s bare feet. In reality, no one else in the world heard it except Sam. His world the only one left in ruins.

This time, there was only the soft padding of Dean’s socks against the wood floor as he shuffled back to his room. He shut the door behind him with a soft click and then silence fell. Sam could fill the choking silence with the angry red-stained script they usually followed. Dean would ask Sam what in the hell he thought he was doing and Sam would mutter about not being able to sleep. Back and forth they’d go and Sam’s world would crumble. Not this time, though, and it left Sam in shock all the same. Who knew the absence of a fight hurt just as bad as having one? Instead of his world reduced to rubble, his world was gray and storm-clouded. Silent and empty. He could not decide if the ruins were worse than the silence. At least the ruins gave him something tangible, something he play over and over and over in his head. The silence gave him nothing, only held breath and an emptiness, and that was torture too.

Sam knew that this had gone on too long. He needed to do something about this problem keeping him up. Dean didn’t deserve this. Not after coming home grease stained, twelve hours after he’d left. Not after Cas, matching tattoo on his chest, had entered his life, all dark hair and small smiles. He needed to be able to deal with his own problems without Sam getting in the way, depriving him of his sleep and his sanity. Just because Sam couldn’t sleep didn’t mean Dean shouldn’t get to. Standing still this long was driving Sam crazy too.

He had just graduated, a degree in English Studies framed on his bedroom wall, and the interest of an intern at Scribe Publishing, who was just a friend from one of his creative writing classes named Kevin. He said Sam's work was ‘promising’ and to ‘give me something good to show my boss in the next few months and we’ll see where it takes us’. His name now covered Sam's recent call list. And his text messages. And his emails. So, at least there was that. Though, with the sleeplessness and the lack of attention, his word documents and notebooks were filled with half-finished sentences, sporadic drawings of birds, about Dean, and about how many bricks made up his bedroom wall. It was 240, he found out.

Sam looked down at the North Star tattoo on his wrist, slightly raised and jet black against his skin, and sighed. His bones knew he hadn’t yet found home and they were itching, eating at Sam from inside to get moving. Find whoever home was. They didn't much care he had responsibilities and family and his life here. He had to give in, or he’d rot here forever.

The tiny window of the bunker Dean had found and made their home, let him glimpse the stars. In sudden, chest-punching clarity, something his mother used to tell him came flooding back.

They’d lay back, shirts staining from the grass below them on the lawn and she’d sweep her thumb across Sam’s wrist and then point at the North Star in the sky.

“Follow this,” she’d say.

“Which one?” Sam would ask.

“Both” she’d say and turn towards him, bright eyes and smelling like vanilla. “‘Both. One’s for your heart, the other for your journey to find where it belongs.”

He made a decision, there in the silent kitchen, morning dew just frosting over the blades of grass and wayward weed outside. Sam was going to follow the North Star.

He reached up and clicked off the stove, the red light blinking into nothing, and he tossed the still-burning pancake batter into the trashcan. He hadn’t even wanted pancakes. He had just wanted something to do. Sam put the pan back on the stovetop to cool and headed to his room, the wood floor icy on his feet.

In his room, he set to work. A few changes of clothes, his phone charger, his wallet and keys. What else was he forgetting? He tossed his laptop and charger into his beat-up duffel bag along with everything else. Across the hallway, he grabbed his toothbrush and a spare, half-empty tube of toothpaste he found under the sink. As a precaution, he tossed in a notebook and a few of his favorite pens and lugged his bag to the living room. He shrugged on his jacket and slid his now sock-clad feet into his boots. He paused.

In the silence, he took a moment to breathe. Was this a good idea? Did it matter? It made sense and, right now, he felt calmer than he had in a long time. That had to count for something. Sam tore a sheet of paper from the notebook he’d thrown into his bag and scribbled out a note for Dean to find in the morning.

_Dear Dean,_

_I won’t be bothering you anymore. I’m off to find whatever my fate has in store for me. Mom used to say follow the North Star, so that’s what I’m going to do. Don’t freak out. Don’t worry. Don’t follow me. Figure your own shit out and say hi to Cas for me._

_P.S. Don’t get married without me._

_P.P.S. I love you and I’m sorry._

_I’ll keep in touch,_

_Sam_

Sam had been able to find the North Star since he was a kid. His mother taught him how. He wasn’t worried about that. Dean teased him about it growing up until that time they’d gotten lost in the woods.

They’d wandered out there after school, both too young to drive and too be okay with being stagnant. They walked the dirt road into the trees, pushing each other and picking up sticks as they went. Dean found a river, clear and cool, so they jumped in after shedding their clothes and tried to one-up each other as they jumped off the rocks that dotted the area. They hadn’t spared a glance at the sky until it was too dark to see their hands in front of their faces and Dean couldn’t remember which direction they’d come in. Neither of them brought their phones. They got dressed in the dark and huddled together as they tried to figure out which way home was. Sam turned his head skyward, waiting for the North Star to take its place. It was always the last to find its spot, so Sam sat down atop a rock, Dean pacing and cursing around him, and waited. When it arrived, knowing home was south, he turned in the opposite direction and kept it over his shoulder as he and Dean stumbled over each other home. Their parents hadn’t been happy, but Dean never said another teasing word about it again.

Sam sent a prayer to the sky and the stars and whoever was listening that the North Star be bright and steady and the night stay long. Prayed it would lead him to someone who could settle his bones. Prayed for some sleep. That is what you prayed for at night, wasn’t it?

Sam tossed his duffel bag into the back of his black Charger and put the keys in the ignition. The radio blasted something loud and guitar filled, a remnant of earlier that day when Dean had taken Sam’s car to get some milk. Sam left it blasting. Out his windshield, he could see it, there in the sky. The North Star shining brighter than all of its shimmering sisters. He eased his way onto the road and took a right, making sure to keep the star in the pane of his windshield. He was on his way to find his soulmate, or inspiration, or maybe just some sleep. He hadn’t gotten much of that lately. Whatever it was, he prayed he’d find it.

* * *

The sun appeared in an instant, it seemed, blinding Sam through a glint against his windshield as he drove. He decided to find a hotel and sleep while the sun was up. Maybe backwards days would work for him. He was following a star after all. He pulled off the highway and stopped at the first semi-decent hotel he spotted along the side-road. The air was crisp, almost fall, as he shrugged his bag over his shoulder and went in.

“Hi, can I help you?” A blond receptionist asked from behind the glossy wood counter. The lobby was bland, dark couches, dark walls, and the smell of dead flowers. Typical.

“One room, please.”

“Single bed or double?”

“Single.” Sam lowered his eyes. When he handed over his cash, her eyes lingered on the tattoo on his wrist as his jacket sleeve rode up. He’d stopped holding his breath for a reaction a long time ago, instead just waited as she did not react. He figured as such. What were the chances he’d find his soulmate so fast? She handed over a room key and he was on his way through the carpeted hallways.

In his room, he went straight into the shower, and found the water too cold to stay in for long. He flicked on the TV just to fill the silence and drew the curtains to block out the sunlight. He could at least try to get some sleep. He wouldn’t be able to keep going until the sun was down and that was hours and hours away. Hair still dripping, he turned the volume to a low murmur and crawled beneath the damp, maroon colored sheets. Despite his tired eyes and bleary vision, sleep did not come for him. Instead, he dozed, drifting off for a few moments before jerking back awake, his heart racing to find the room just as he left it minutes before. He felt like he was drowning, just able to gasp in a breath of relief before falling back under. Some people said Restless Heart was a made up syndrome. Sam would’ve liked to punch those people right about now. Or let them punch him until he was unconscious. He’d get some rest that way.

Sighing, he got out of bed and pulled his laptop from his bag. Maybe now in the silence he’d be able to get some writing done. He’d find that Big Idea that would put him on the map. Something that would change people, inspire people, make them feel something. He snorted. Yeah right. He could dream, though. He could dream. Hadn’t ever been able to shut that part of his brain down. Not even after all these years of disappointment. After ten minutes of watching his cursor blink at him, angry and daunting, his laptop pinged with an email alert. Great, he’d just check his email. Then he’d get some writing done.

It had been spam, of course. Something about sending money to a foreign price in need. A bunch of bullshit. Now that he was here, though, he noticed the little black number beside his inbox was in the hundreds and his junk almost double that. He might as well clean out his inbox, while he was here right? He’d let the spam and junk and things he should have replied to long ago pile up for much too long. Now was the perfect time to fix that.

An hour and a half later, he had a brand new inbox complete with labeled folders to sort his emails into and was back to the blank word document. Still nothing worthwhile came to him. The sun was still high and bright outside the streaky hotel window and he willed night to come faster. He itched to keep moving, his legs jumping beneath him. His stomach growled and he once again got out of bed, this time pulling on jeans and his shoes and heading out the door. It was no use waiting around for an idea to come in that stuffy hotel room. In the lobby, he paused.

“Can I help you Mr. Winchester?” The receptionist looked up from her computer. There didn’t seem to be much going on, not this time of day he guessed. Night was when the truckers, travelers, and lost souls came.

“Uh, I was just going to get some food. Any good places around here?”

“Oh, sure! There’s a breakfast place a block over that direction and a burger place just past it.”

Sam nodded. “Thanks.”

“Oh, and, I’m not sure where you’re from, but around here, we don’t flash those around much. Small town and all.” She glanced at Sam’s wrist where his tattoo sat. Odd, back home nobody cared. And no one had minded at Stanford either. Back in the day, Sam knew soulmate tattoos were a private, taboo thing. This town, with its brick well out back and dirt roads was just small enough to be behind the times.

Sam tugged his jacket sleeve over his wrist and nodded his thanks to her. Nothing would have happened had she not said anything, but Sam didn’t want attention drawn his way and he appreciated the warning. He was just here to wait out the sun and move on. This was not a place he wanted to leave his mark behind. Not one he wanted to remember. He’d be a ghost here and that was okay with him.

As he walked down the street, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He answered it without looking, cool air filling his lungs as he walked.

“Dean, I’m fine.”

“Sammy, where the hell are you?” His brother’s voice jumped out at him.

“Dean, seriously, I’m good. I need to be on my own for a while.”

“Sam-“

“No, Dean. I’m fine and I will continue to be fine. Go. Be with Cas and get some uninterrupted sleep, okay? We both need to figure our shit out and I can’t do it there and you can’t do it with me there. This is better for both of us.”

“Why can’t you just use one of those matching websites?” Dean asked. He was only half joking. Once soulmate tattoos were less taboo, a new market sprung up overnight. Places to post pictures of your tattoo with the hope someone with the same one stumbled across it. Some were pretty damn detailed, categorizing the tattoos in hundreds of ways to make it easier to find your match. Sam, in a fit of desperation one night, had searched those sites until his head ached from staring at the screen and tattoos danced behind his eyes when he closed them. Though, he wasn’t about to tell Dean that.

“Dean, you know those don’t work. And this feels right. I feel like I’m on my way to finding them, like I’m closer to them somehow.”

“Alright, alright. Cut the cheesy shit Samantha. Just keep me posted, okay? One call a day or I’m assuming the worst and tracking you down, got it?”

“Got it. Thanks Dean.”

“For what Sammy?”

Sam paused. Above him, the sky was filled with wisps of clouds, thin and see-through. A car crept past him, wheels crunching dirt. The driver waved to Sam as he passed and Sam threw up a hand in response.

“Just everything,” he said.

“What did I just say about the cutesy stuff?” Sam could hear his smile.

Sam could hear a low murmur in the background. Cas, he figured. They met when Cas brought his car into Dean’s auto shop. Matching angel wing tattoos sealed the deal, though Dean didn’t find Cas’s tattoo until he’d already brought him home for a little ‘fun’ as Dean called it. Now it was a month later and Cas was still around. Sam hadn’t ever seen Dean so calm, so happy. When he saw the way Dean had started to look at Cas, crinkly eyed and warm, Sam knew he was missing something special. He wanted that. In whatever form in came in.

“Dean, I’m serious,” Sam huffed.

“I know, I know. Stay safe, talk to you later bitch.”

“Jerk.”

Sam hung up as he arrived at the door to the breakfast place. It was one of those little hole-in-the-wall places with old school black and white pictures of the New York skyline and newspaper comics covering every inch of the walls. Peeling-plastic booth seats dotted the stained carpet. The waitress, in an honest-to-god pink poodle skirt, knee-high socks so threadbare Sam could see the tanned skin of her calves, and a smirk across her red lips, let him take his pick in the empty room. He chose a seat at the bar and she slid him a sticky menu before loading her arms with plates and making her rounds.

“Be back in a sec, honey. Special today is the omelet breakfast, you choose two sides.”

A glance at her plate-laden arms told Sam that most of the other customers ordered the omelet special so he figured it couldn’t be so bad. He ordered it and a water and watched as she made her way around the room to chat with the other patrons. When she had come full circle and slid his plate in front of him, she stopped to chat with him too.

“So, what brings you here?”

“Just traveling. Humor me, will you?” She raised an eyebrow but nodded.  Must get a lot of weird requests, working here. “Where exactly is here?”

She laughed, her pixie blond hair falling into her face. “Franklin. That’s Nebraska, in case you weren’t sure on that either.”

“Right, Franklin,” Sam said.

“Franklin. Population 900 something, full of greenery and walnuts and nothing much else.” She smirked, but there was something sad in there too. Maybe it was the writer in him, giving the character in front of him a backstory to make it okay to want to drive away with her in tow. Just to get her out of here. Out of this dirt covered town.

“So why live here?” Sam asked.

She shrugged. “It’s where I landed, doing what you’re doing now. Just never left, I guess.”

Sam nodded. She walked away and Sam dug into the steaming plate in front of him, his hunger catching up to him with its heavy weight. The omelet was mediocre, exactly what he expected from a place like this. Sam didn’t much care. If he wanted fine dining, he wouldn’t have chosen this in the first place. Nor this town, if he was being honest. This was the kind of place with saloons and water wells still intact. He wouldn’t be surprised if it still had a sheriff, gold star badge pinned on his flannel shirt and everything.

“Name’s Meg. What’s yours?” The waitress asked, leaning against the counter on her elbows in front of Sam. Sam looked up to find the restaurant had emptied around him, leaving him alone inside.

“Sam. Nice to meet you,” he offered, scraping his plate clean.

“So proper, like a real gentleman. Not many of those 'round here.”

Sam sighed. He knew where this was going and he’d already spotted the swirling tattoo behind her ear when she moved past him earlier, her hair had falling out of place.

“Listen, I-“Sam started. She cut him off.

“I get off around 8 if you want to come back. Just an offer. I see you’re tatted and so am I, no harm in that. I won’t be heartbroken if you don’t show.” She glanced at his wrist. Sam tugged at his sleeve.

Sam nodded, but he knew he’d be on the road by then, hours of road between them. Plus, flings weren’t his style. That was more Dean. What was the point if nothing good would come of them? They were just a waste of energy and a potential for heartbreak. Sam couldn’t help but form attachments in an instant. His heart broke often and regularly. It was breaking for Meg and her stranded sadness, though he knew her for an hour.

He could only head north until the border to Canada in North Dakota. That, he knew, was only 12 hours from here. Technically, his soulmate could live in Canada, but he didn’t have a passport and wouldn’t be able to cross the border anyway, so that was where his road ended. For now at least. He doubted it would remain the end if his soulmate was not in sight before the border. But, he’d deal with that when he got there. He planned on stopping as soon as the sun came up, around five, which put him in South Dakota by tomorrow morning as long as nothing slowed him. It was tricky, though. He had the nagging feeling that he was going to pass his soulmate by in one of these small towns. He figured he should stop in at least one or two more before hitting South Dakota. Cover as much space as possible while still moving, so he didn’t get too restless.

He paid his bill, left the restaurant, and paused. He wasn’t tired, so he didn’t feel like going back to the hotel. Instead, he wandered around beneath the sun until he came to the steps of a large, white building. _Franklin County Museum_ hung hand-painted, on a large plaque above the door. He shrugged and went in. When in Rome, right?

He spent his afternoon wandering around the museum and the ‘authentic’ 1800s schoolhouse set up just outside which was, if he was being honest, really fucking cool. He snapped a picture of the set up and texted it to Dean. His phone vibrated with a response not long after with just the word ‘NERD’. He rolled his eyes. Should’ve expected that. As the sun started to go down, Sam headed back to his room to try to get an hour of sleep in before the stars blinked awake and beckoned him onward.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam’s brain finally quieted, letting him drift to sleep slowly, but the dreams he fell into were shadow-full and panic-laced and left him feeling exhausted when he woke. The sky was darkening, all the pinks and oranges disappearing in the span of a blink as he caught his breath and centered himself, his heartbeat still pounding at him to run from the dream world that still felt too real in the dark. He counted down from five, making lists from the numbers. Five things he could hear: his own ragged breath, a car inching its way through the gravel-covered parking lot, heavy footsteps down the hall, the elevator pinging, a child’s wall-muffled cry. Four things he could touch: the sheets beneath him, the scar above his kneecap, the cool side of the pillow, the water bottle on the side table. He went on and found himself calming, the dream world falling away into nothing at his feet. Sam stood, shrugging his shoulders and imagining it all falling to the ground with a thud. _Shrug it off, that way it won’t weigh you down. You’re already carrying your world on your shoulders and it won’t do to add anything more_ his mother used to say after bad dreams and bad people and bad days. Sam still did it, and somehow imagining it slipping from his shoulders helped, if only a little.

He packed the few items he’d taken from his bag. His toothbrush and his change of clothes, snagging the hotel shampoo too, just in case. On his way out, he opened the curtains again and made the bed as well as he could. Best to leave the place nicer than he’d found it. It was a dumb rule from his childhood, but it still stuck with him. The world was large and full of dark and it didn’t sit right that he’d add to that.

The hotel floor was empty, though Sam could hear raspy coughing coming from the room next to his as he shut the door and heaved his bags onto his shoulders. The carpet was matted, dark gray and dull in the almost yellow light. The walls were blank, except for the picture of a sailboat framed between two rooms down the way. Odd. Water wasn’t anywhere close to here. A voice called out, breaking the night with giggling laughter and Sam smiled a little at the beauty of it all. The absolute music. Somewhere in a hotel on the outskirts of a nothing town, there was laughter long after the sun had gone to bed and Sam just happened to be there to hear its ring through the night.

Sam returned his key at the desk with a nod to the man now on duty. As he walked out, he snagged a map from the stand by the door. Just in case, he figured. He tossed his bags into the passenger seat and started his car in the empty parking lot. The moon was low and more yellow than white. It felt calm, that sort of moon. It felt magical. Like the things of the night were farther away with the moon so bright and low to the ground. The road was smooth under his tires as he cruised towards the border, keeping the North Star in his sights. At a split in the road, he’d make a decision and stick with it. The tattoo on his arm meant he’d find his soulmate, so each decision should bring him closer. At least, that was the theory. Sam wasn’t too sure how a tattoo would lead him to home, but hey, it worked for everyone else, so why not him?

He tapped his fingers on his steering wheel as he drove, itching for a snack to munch on or gum to chew. Something, anything, to keep him distracted. He wished he’d thought this whole thing through before he left. Then he’d have had time to download an audiobook or something. All he had in the car was a scratched up CD one of his college buddies had made him, no longer usable, and a CD full of Dolly Parton Christmas songs. Definitely not what he wanted to listen to on this road trip, though when Christmas came, he always found himself driving to see the lights around town and blasting that damn CD.

While he drove, he told himself stories out loud. Yeah, he probably looked crazy, but who gave a fuck? There was no one around to judge him. He made up stories for the people in the cars he passed at four in the morning; each driver had a history, so why not try to make one up? He passed a man driving home from seeing the college girl he was having an affair with, racing to beat the sun back to his wife and kids at home. They had school in three hours and he was running out of time and running on no sleep and just doing a lot running. He passed a girl on her way home from a concert, though not one she had really wanted to go to. Her friend had asked her to go and her social life was just slow enough to say yes without asking who was playing. She had an all right time, and somehow she’d end up going again next time her friend asked. Sam passed a midnight veterinarian smelling like blood and an undercover cop with shaking hands and a mortician questioning the universe after meeting so many of the dead and too many of the still living. He passed so many versions of himself on those moonlit roads, it was hard to see anyone else in them. They were here, on the road and trying to find themselves, so they were him. On the run. All of them. There was an odd sort of unity between the midnight drivers of the world.

Miles and miles away, the night weaver heard their prayers. All the people cloaking themselves in darkness and wreaking havoc on the sleepy world. He heard them and filled the night with stars to help them find their way home.

* * *

Somewhere in the middle of Nebraska, Sam pulled off to the side of the highway, his body too tired to continue holding itself up after the nightmare-filled dreams and the days of sleepless nights stretching their dark fingers behind him. His back started to hunch forward, his knees ached beneath him. The stars were still out, but wouldn’t be for much longer and he decided to call it a night after his eyes started burning and his blinks started lasting longer than they should have. The first motel he found was booked, as was the second. The third had one room available and Sam took it without question, on the verge of sleeping in his car. The guy behind the counter warned him the air-conditioning unit was broken, but Sam didn’t much care. He’d just open the window and sleep the sun away.

Settling down to sleep in the morning was something that needed getting used to, the sunlight throwing his body off despite his exhaustion. It took a while, what felt like hours, to find sleep. Just as he drifted off, he sent out a prayer for soft dreams, for no dreams, just for some sleep.

His sleep-hazed prayers received an answer. The sun woke up life and Sam slept like the dead. He awoke in the late, golden afternoon to his phone ringing from across the room, dancing against the chipped dresser in bursts of vibration.

“Hello?” He grunted, his voice cracky and deep from sleep. He’d assumed it was Dean, no one else would be calling, and didn’t bother to mask his irritation at being woken from the only sleep he’d had in what felt like his life.

“Sam? It’s Kevin, with Scribe Publishing?” Came from the other end.

“Oh, hey Kev. What’s up?” Sam coughed the sleep from his voice and let something brighter infuse into his words. He was wide-awake and totally normal and happy.

“I’m not sure if you got my email this morning. My boss is really pressing me for a sample of something from you. We can only hold a spot with an editor for so long, Sam.”

Sam sighed. “I know, Kev, I know. I’ve hit a dry patch, but I’ll get you something soon okay?”

“Please, do. If we don’t get anything within the month, we’re going to have to let you go. Of course, once you have something, we’d be pleased to have you apply again, but it won’t be a guarantee like this is. We’re friends and I know what you can do with words, Sam. Don’t give up.”

Guilt was dull and heavy in Sam’s stomach. Kevin was sticking his neck out for Sam and Sam had nothing to give him in return. “Thanks, Kevin. I’m working on it. You’ll have something by the end of the month.”

“Great! And Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I’m just doing a bit of traveling now that we’re free from school, you know how that is.”

“Ah, I hear you. Wish I could, too. Work’s gotten a little demanding over here.” Kevin had landed a job immediately, having interned at his publishing company for a few years before getting hired the minute he graduated. They liked him there and he liked it. Sam wondered if he’d found his soulmate, but didn’t want to ask. That wasn’t something you just brought up. Not even in today’s world. “It’s great, though.”

“That’s awesome. I’m glad to hear it. Thanks for calling, Kev.”

“Talk to you soon, Sam. I look forward to reading whatever you send,” Kevin said, so earnest and hopeful. Sam hung up his phone and let his shoulders slump forward. He had no ideas, no inspiration. He had nothing. A drought had started long ago and still no rain came. All he had was a time limit and the knowledge that he couldn’t let his shot go to waste. Not many people had one, not this early. Kevin was trying so hard for Sam and he didn’t want to let him down either.

He groaned and got into the shower, hoping the water would shake loose something, anything, he could write about. In the end he was left dripping wet and shivering with nothing else to offer. He forced himself to sit down at the chipped and battered desk in front of the window, gold seeping through the thin curtains, to write. He free wrote about whatever came to his mind. The shadows in his dreams and the way birds flew past in a split second before disappearing again and the rattle of the broken air conditioner to his right. In the end, he deleted the entire document without any remorse for the words gone. The page was filled with nonsense. He couldn’t stay on topic long enough to get anywhere with it. Sam flopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, wishing for night to come faster once again.

* * *

Dark, roiling clouds loomed on the horizon as Sam checked out of his motel. He could see them blocking out the moon with their thick darkness, could feel the static on his skin through the parking lot. The North Star was still shining, though. Despite the clouds. Sam debated waiting out the storm, staying through the night, but decided he could just pull over later if it got too bad. He didn’t think he’d stay sane if he didn’t keep moving. He called Dean as he got back on the car-dotted highway as promised. Around his car, it was all contrast. Pinks and yellows of the sunset just beneath the gray cloud cover threatening to overtake them. Sometimes it felt like the world could not decide what color to be, times like this. Instead of being just one, the world decided to be them all. Whites and blacks mixed in the clouds, yellow lashing out as the sun set. Orange and pink filled the sky, morphing with the darker blues and purples where the darkness met the light. It was all there, Sam could spot every single color and all of them in between. It made the world feel surreal, clashing, jarring, new. If he were a painter, he’d long to dip his hands in those colors. Now, he only wished he could write them.

“Hey, Sammy. How goes it?” Dean answered after the third ring.

“It goes. Probably crossing into South Dakota tonight.”

“Bobby said there’s a storm ‘round here, you get caught in it?”

“No. Not yet at least. I can see it up ahead.”

“Sounds like a bitch of a storm. Make sure you pull off the road and find somewhere safe if shit hits the fan, okay? Call me tomorrow to let me know you’re good.”

“Yeah, yeah, will do.”

“Stay safe, Sammy.”

“Thanks, Dean. You too. How’s Cas?”

“He’s good, Sammy. Really good.”

“I’m happy for you Dean,” Sam said. A car blew past him, inches from taking off his side mirror and Sam let his breath hiss from his lips, startled, as it zoomed ahead. “Bye, Dean.”

“Later, Sammy.”

Sam tossed his phone onto the passenger seat and it bounced off, falling on the floor and disappearing from view.  He sighed and left it. He’d get it later when he didn’t need to watch the road as it passed beneath him. There was something about the stars that night. Maybe it was the impending storm. Maybe it was Sam’s imagination. The stars seemed much brighter than usual, and despite the cloud-cover overtaking the moon now the afternoon had fully disappeared, it was just as bright as the night before. Brighter even. Though, that was probably because the storm had blocked out everything else. Loneliness makes the light grow stronger, or whatever it is people said. Sam felt a warmth fall over him, something soft and safe. He leaned back against the seat and drove beneath it all.

Then the clouds got closer and Sam kept going. Storms were always farther than they seemed. Always. But, then it wasn’t so far and they were right above him, thunder shaking his car, his bones so hard he could feel it in his teeth. He pulled off to the side of the road as the floodgates opened above, creeping onto the shoulder of the road just past the entrance to a small town he couldn’t catch the name of. He’d already crossed the border into South Dakota and the sun would come up soon, the darkness starting to gray at the edges as the clock ticked towards three. The clouds made it hard to tell, blocking out any light the sky tried to seep through, but Sam knew it was coming. It always came. Sam hadn’t even spotted a hotel before the gunshot rain was pounding on the roof and his windshield wipers couldn’t keep up enough for him to see anything through the wall of water. They said to turn off his car to prevent people following him so he did just that and sat while the world outside tried to seep its way to him.

He waited out the storm, sure the thunder would shatter his windshield and his eardrums and send the brick-built buildings into crumbles as it grew its heaviest and darkest around him. There may have been an eye in a hurricane, a moment of reprieve, but this was no hurricane and the storm waged on. The rain poured down so thick, it formed a fog around his car and Sam couldn’t see his own hand in the darkness that fell. The thought of not making it out of this had crossed his mind for the third time that hour as lightning struck close enough to leave an imprint behind his eyelids, bright and angry and asking to be feared. It didn’t have to ask twice.

Shaking his head, he tossed that aside. It was just rain. Hard and loud rain, but still it was just water in the end. He’d make it. The clouds would pass, they always did, and he’d be on his way through the slippery streets. He reasoned once the rain cleared enough, he’d just find the nearest hotel and stay for the day. Let the roads dry up and the panicked people trapped beneath the onslaught to speed their way into destruction before he followed in their debris-covered footsteps.

Ten minutes later, the rain let up just enough for Sam to be able see the street in front of him. The storm wasn’t gone, not even close, but he could manage it now. He turned the key and his engine sputtered and wheezed.

“No, no, no, don’t do this to me,” Sam muttered, trying the key again. Still nothing even close to life came from it. Just a pitiful cough and then nothing.

“Fuck,” he cursed into the empty car, banging his hand against the steering wheel. He opened his door, plunging beneath the hammering rain and went to the hood. Opening it, he scanned to see if he could find the problem, relying on the half-hearted attempts Dean had made to pass on his car expertise to Sam over the years. After five minutes of poking around, Sam had no idea what caused his car to give it all up and he dove back inside to get out of the rain and figure out what to do next.

He could call someone, Dean or a mechanic or an emergency service.  A glance at his phone showed him no service and a nearly dead battery, though, tossing that idea out the window. He tossed his phone aside, a little too hard, at the passenger seat once again and it hit the ground with a thud. It was no use to him now anyway. His only other option was to get out and walk with the hope he happened upon both an open and a dry place before long. How far would he reasonably have to go? Half a mile at the most?

Sighing, he plunged beneath the rainfall again and chose a direction at random unable to see farther than two feet in the water haze. Ten minutes of trudging through the pelting rain and Sam could say little for his progress. He was only farther from his car and soaked to the bone. Cold was creeping up through his fingers in a way he hadn’t experienced since he touched snow for the first time as a kid without mittens. He had passed a few buildings, a steakhouse with its neon sign flickering and a doctor’s office, but both had closed already, so late in the night, and he could do nothing except keep moving.

He saw a building looming ahead, a house by the silhouette he could only just make out through the grayness. As he grew closer, he could see he was right. Car in driveway, bicycle on the front lawn, all the signs a family was home and snuggled safely in their beds. He stopped on the sidewalk, hesitating before walking through their front yard and to their door. Under their doorstep, an eave made from the second floor’s overhang gave him a moment of reprieve from the bullets falling from the sky to catch his breath. He knocked, hoping someone from inside would come to his rescue. He didn’t want to wake the entire family if he didn’t need to, so he avoided the doorbell. He heard nothing from inside, though, not even a peep. Sam hesitated, then knocked harder. Still nothing. He thought he saw movement from the other side of the distorted-glass window in the center of the door, but still the door did not open. Must have been a trick of the eye.

He sighed and turned away. At the edge of the overhang, he paused. Where should he go now? Up in the sky, the clouds parted just the tiniest amount and Sam could see the North Star shining bright and alone. It was a sign, he thought, before kicking himself for being so damn cheesy. He decided to head towards it. As his mother told him, it would lead him somewhere akin to home and that’s what he needed right about now. A home to hide in.

Sam walked beneath the rain, still as constant and poundingly furious as ever, along the dirt road now turning to mud beneath his boots. Ahead, something much taller than a house or a restaurant loomed and the sound of choppy waves sloshed through the night. He was near water, a lake most likely, though in the rain-haze he couldn’t make out where it was. Only that it was close and the thought of it made a warmth curl in his chest. He’d always loved the water. Didn’t much matter what sort. A large beam of light cut pulsed against the grayness of the clouds in a constant blinking. A lighthouse, then. It was tall enough to be one. Maybe he could hide out inside until the storm passed.

Sam ran to the base of the lighthouse, letting his fingers drag along the wall as he circled the building to find a faded and splintering red wooden door on the far side, facing the water. Sam tried to open it, tugging at the door handle, but it didn’t budge. It was stuck. He tried again, putting all his weight behind it, and still nothing. Sighing and resigned, Sam slumped against the door, his back scratching against the wood, and let his head fall into his hands. Where else could he go? Back to his car, he supposed. Wait the storm out inside and then walk back to find a mechanic when he could actually see. Sam steeled himself, his pruning hands and shivering body not ready to emerge once again after such crushed hope. He stood himself up. The top of the lighthouse blocked the rain from directly pelting Sam, so he stayed under it another minute while he convinced himself just to do it, to plunge back beneath the water and walk all the way back to his car.

Just as he was about to leave, foot in the rainfall now, the door swung open from the inside to reveal a wide-eyed man, short and wrapped in a blanket, surprise written all over his face. He was backlit from the yellow light shining from inside the lighthouse and his eyes looked like they were glowing gold. Sam found himself wondering what his eyes would look like in the daylight or beneath the light of the moon. Wondering if anyone had ever painted with that color. Wondered if it felt like the sunsets it showed up in, warm and sleepy.

“Hi?” The man said, eyebrows raised at Sam and breaking Sam’s internal poetic waxing about the strangers eyes.

“Oh shit, sorry. I didn’t know anyone lived here. My car broke down and I tried a house down the way and everything else is closed and I have nowhere to go so I thought I’d hide in here but now I see someone, not someone, you, live here so I’ll just-”

“Say no more. Come on in.” The man opened the door wider, stepping out of the way, and Sam ducked his head, grateful, as he walked in. At the door, he hesitated, his boots mud caked and his clothes dripping puddles onto the floor.

“Uh, I better not,” Sam said.

“Nah, don’t worry. Water always gets in here. Comes with the territory. Your boots you can just leave by the door. A little mud never hurt anybody. Except maybe if they choked on it. Can people choke on mud?”

Sam huffed a laugh. “Why would they be eating mud in the first place?”

The man’s eyes crinkled at the edges as he smiled. “Touché, my friend, touché.”

“My name’s Sam,” Sam offered when the man fell silent, studying him from across the room.

“Gabriel. Nice to meet you. Let me get you a towel and a change of clothes, yeah?”

Sam nodded and stayed by the door so the water dripping from his clothes pooled on the welcoming mat and nowhere else. He looked around the room as he waited. It was small, the black-steel spiral staircase in the center of the room while a small kitchen area with an island countertop protruded from the wall in front of Sam. On the other side of the staircase, a couch and a few bookshelves took up most of the room, and Sam itched to take a look the books shelved there. Beside that was an archway, presumably to Gabriel’s bedroom and bathroom, through which Gabriel had disappeared only moments before. Everything was warm lit from the yellow lights built into the walls around the room.

Sam stepped forward, letting his eyes follow the spiral staircase up and up and up, neck craning. He couldn’t make out what exactly was up there, but most of the ceiling was made of glass and Sam could only imagine how the stars would look if there weren’t any clouds to block their twinkling light. He’d love to sleep under a ceiling like that.

Gabriel emerged with a pile of clothing in his hands. “This is all I could find that might be big enough to fit you. Bathroom’s through there and to your right. Take all the time you need and if I forgot anything just give me a holler.”

“Thanks,” Sam said, taking the pile and heading to find the bathroom. As he suspected, Gabriel’s bedroom was on the other side of the doorway. Dark gray paint covered the walls while a fluffy black comforter covered the bed in the center of the room. On each side, dark wood side-tables sat, scattered with books. Some were flipped open, others had sticky notes poking from the pages. Windows, large and spotless, covered the far wall and gave a view of the lake, the storm making its water angry as the rain met its match in the water below. Sam had always wondered if the ocean was angry during storms because it was under attack from the water, or if it was because the clouds took the moon away. They were soulmates, people whispered, not the sun and the moon but the moon and the ocean. They found their calmness, their push and their pull together. And when the moon was gone, the ocean cried in roaring waves. An ode to what it had lost. How dramatic and how beautiful, Sam had always thought. A love like the ocean was a love to behold indeed.

Sam continued on to the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. The bathroom was small, the shower smaller still, but Sam was just relieved he found a place at all. He started the water and shed his heavy clothes, putting his sopping jeans and t-shirt in the sink so they wouldn’t get Gabriel’s floor wet. He ducked under the spray and sighed when hot water hit his back. He let his body thaw for a moment beneath the spray, stealing small amounts of the shampoo and body wash already in there to clean himself before getting out. The borrowed clothes were a bit on the small side, the sweatpants exposing his ankles and the faded black t-shirt tight across the muscle of his shoulders, but they were dry so he wasn’t about to complain. They smelled good too, something soft and comforting. Like sunshine, sugar, and days with no end. A breeze over a calm lake, gentle and warm as it brushed the Earth.

He came out from the bathroom, using the towel to wring some of the moisture from his hair. Gabriel was in the kitchen over the stove with his back to Sam, humming a soft whispering song through the air as the rain pelted outside. Now that Sam was covered, the rain was nice, a drumming lullaby. Gabriel’s voice added something deep and magical to its beat.

“Gabriel? Where do you want me to put my clothes and towel?”

“Oh, toss ‘em wherever. I’ll put your clothes in the dryer if you want?”

“You don’t have to. They’ll be dry by morning if I hang them up somewhere.”

“I’m not taking no for an answer, Sam W-whatever-your-last-name-is. And the towel you can just hang wherever you damn well please.”

“Winchester, my last name’s Winchester,” Sam offered and went back into the bathroom to hang the towel on the rack and wring out his clothes in the sink. They’d dry faster that way. Less money for Gabriel to spend on him while he waited out the weather.

“Sam, I’ve got some grub warm if you want some. And hot chocolate,” Gabriel called from the kitchen. With its ever-perfect timing, Sam’s stomach grumbled angrily at him and he left his clothes where they were to deal with later.

In the kitchen, Gabriel sat on a stool at the island, a plate of pancakes and a mug of steaming hot chocolate in front of him, complete with whipped cream and a chocolate drizzle on both. The same sat on a plate by his side, in front of the other stool, just waiting for Sam. Sam slid into place and picked up his fork to dig in, eager to warm his stomach now that his body had thawed.

“Oh, I forgot. There’s some syrup and butter in the fridge if you’d like some? I’ve also got powdered sugar and I might have some strawberries if that tickles your fancy. You’re welcome to take whatever you’d like.”

At the mention of strawberries, Sam’s mouth watered. He ignored the craving. He already felt bad Gabriel had gone through the trouble to make food _and_ hot chocolate. It’d be stealing. Sam couldn’t bring himself to do that. Not when Gabe had already been so kind.

“This is fine, perfect even,” Sam said and dug in, the pancakes surprisingly delicious plain. Better than he’d ever made at four in the morning. Hell, they were better than any pancakes he’d ever made period.

“You sure?” Gabriel asked.

Sam nodded. This was more than enough, he wanted to say. Too much, really. It was exactly what he’d needed. He sipped his hot chocolate and almost moaned it was so delicious, rich and creamy against his tongue, and warm. He felt sleepily content as he sipped it. Like his mom had made him warm milk before bed kind of sleepy. He hadn’t felt like that in years.

Beside him, Gabriel finished his own stack of pancakes and got up. He gathered the now-cool pan and his plate and set them in the sink, running the water to fill it. He reached beneath the counter and emerged with a bottle of blue dish soap and stood back as the suds rose higher and higher. While he waited, he sipped at his own hot chocolate and leaned against the counter.

“So, what brings you here Sam?”

Sam, still chewing, shrugged. “Just traveling.”

“Any particular reason?”

“Not really. I just graduated and my publisher’s nagging at me to write something. Problem is I’ve got nothing to write about.”

“A writer huh?”

Sam shrugged. “In theory.”

Gabriel smiled a knowing smile. “How’d you end up here?”

“It’s kind of a long story.” He left it at that. ‘I’m following the North Star because my dead mother always told me to and it also happens to be my soulmate tattoo’ didn’t really seem like material to drop on a stranger, though Gabriel did seem just weird enough to dig that sort of thing. Gabriel didn’t ask any more of Sam and they fell into silence as the sink filled.

“Why do you live here?” Sam asked.

“You mean the whole lighthouse thing?” Gabriel waved his hand around the room. Sam nodded.

“I’m an astronomer of sorts and this is a perfect place to do my work.”

“What kind of work do you do?” Sam asked, intrigued. Stars had always been a fascination of his, but he never really had the money to go to get into it. The computer screen was the closest he’d gotten to seeing the stars up close and he couldn't imagine how amazing they’d be in real life.

“Charting, mostly. It’s all very sciency and I could go on for hours. I once bored a guy to death and I don’t want to be doing that to a pretty thing like you.”

Sam huffed a laugh, a small blush rising in his cheeks, and he turned to finish his last bite, standing to bring his plate to the sink.

“No, I got it. You must be tired, why don’t you sleep?” Gabriel said. “Take my bed. I promise it’s clean.”

Sam started to protest, but Gabriel glared at him with such malice and stern determination in his little body that Sam closed his mouth. He sighed. “Fine.”

The sun was waking up, casting orange light through Gabe’s bedroom windows as Sam climbed on top of his comforter, finding it just as soft as it looked. He felt a bit odd about sliding beneath the covers of someone else’s bed and it was warm enough with the sun warming everything it touched not to have to. He fell asleep almost immediately, something he hadn’t expected. He hadn’t fallen asleep so fast in years. There was something about this place, the water outside or the dark paint or _something_ that made him feel so calm and safe. His body knew it even if he didn’t, sighing into this place, this magic-threaded and wonder-filled place with the man who was somehow more interesting than it all. Sam, for once, was at peace in his dreams.


	3. Chapter 3

Sam dreamed of warmth and woke hours later to find his legs weighed down with a blanket and a glass of water on the side table. His now-dry clothing sat folded beside it. Even, Sam noticed as he sat up, his boots were cleaned of the thick cake of mud he’d accumulated the day before. Cleaner than they’d been since he bought them. Sam felt a flush of warmth towards Gabriel. A mix of gratitude and a little guilt and something Sam couldn’t quite put his finger on and Sam wished he had a way to repay him for all the kindness he’d shown. He got an idea and rummaged around the drawers of the room, the desk and the dresser, until he found a scrap piece of paper and a pencil.

_Gabriel,_ he wrote. Then hesitated, the pencil hovering just over the page. He had so many things to say, and no way to say them without sounding cheesy as hell. He decided he’d make it into a story. Words came easier that way, for him at least.

_There was a man wandering, lost in the night. Been there done that. The universe had seen the same thing a hundred times over, and it had let them get lost and wander. It was the way of things. But this man was different because this man was me. Except I was no different because I am just me. I was stranded in the rage of the water, drowning on my feet, and you let me into your tiny kingdom you call home. A reckless and kind thing to do, for a reckless and kind sir. You have saved a drowning man, Gabriel, saved him so he can follow the stars once more. So, I thank you. I do not know how else to thank you. This pencil is borrowed, these words too, in the end. Maybe these words can show my thanks in a way I cannot speak them. I hope so. I hope so._

_Thank you for everything,_

_Sam._

It was still cheesy as hell so Sam crumpled it up and tossed it into the trashcan by the door, finding another piece of paper and just writing ‘thanks for everything -Sam’. He set it on Gabe’s pillow, folding his borrowed clothing next to it after he’d changed. He drained the cup of water and took in the sights out the window one last time. In the afternoon sun, the lake had calmed to gentle lapping at the rocky shore below the lighthouse and Sam was mesmerized, watching in complete stillness for one frozen moment. His world felt light here, the air free and weightless. As it should be. The water was softly blue and the cloud-dotted sky reflected off the surface in stunning clarity. Count on the water to show the sky how beautiful it was. And on the sky to clear of its dark and cloudy war every single time. Sam took in a breath and slid from the bed, resisting the urge to step closer to the window and press his face against the warm glass. He knew if he did, he’d never leave.

Through the doorway, Sam could see Gabriel, curled in on himself and asleep on the couch, soft breathing drifting through the room. He grabbed the blanket from the bed and crept toward Gabriel, glad when the wooden floor did not creak beneath his feet, and laid it over him as he slept. Asleep, his face was smooth and blank, the sun from above casting an illuminous glow on him. Sam had the strangest urge to take a picture or, stranger still, curl in beside the man on the small couch and bask in the warmth of it all.

He shook the thought from his head, slipping his shoes on and tiptoeing out the door. He eased the door shut softly, wincing at the sharp creak of the hinges. No sound of rustling came from inside, to his relief, and Sam turned from the door towards the outside daylight world he hadn’t yet seen.

Down the way, the dirt road was still muddy, puddles of standing water festering and buzzing with mosquitos here and there, but it was much easier to navigate by the light of day. He walked along the road, passing the house he’d knocked at. Now, a young boy rode the electric blue bike through the puddles in the street while a young, twenty-something mother looked on from the front doorway. She had a hand over her mouth, like she was stopping herself from calling the boy towards her, to safety, while he wobbled. She did not want to see him fall. No. She did not want him to hit the ground hard enough to rattle his bones or to tear his skin. The ground was not soft, she knew, having landed hard one too many times herself. She waved to Sam as he walked past and he tossed a small wave back. He held no hard feelings. Sam wasn’t sure he’d open the door to a stranger in the middle of the night, wandering through a rainstorm. There were too many movies, too many knife-wielding strangers on doorsteps plastered across the news, to not give someone a second thought. Especially with a sleeping child inside. Gabriel had, though. Gabriel had. Sam didn’t know what to make of that.

He kept on, soon passing the doctor’s office and the steakhouse, somehow much smaller in the daylight. Darkness always let his imagination run, making shadows into things much bigger than themselves. Even the walk back was faster, the distance short enough he could still see the point of the lighthouse as he passed the doctor’s drab building. He noticed so many new things by the light of day. Buildings he’d completely missed and grass, so much grass growing around in patches between buildings and through the cracks in the sidewalk. Flowers sprang up from the ground in brightly colored clumps that dotted the ground, weeds tangled with them. The world was awake, alive, and full of color now the storm had gone.

He found his car, dirt covered and tires mud-crusted off the side of the road near the highway exit, just where he remembered. The lighthouse was down the dirt road that branched from this one, a fork in the road. Down the other way, a town lay, buildings of all shapes poking up towards the sky and he scolded himself for not walking that direction the night before. He would have found reprieve much faster had he gone that way, though without streetlights and in the thick night, he couldn’t have known his folly. He had found safety, though, so it wasn’t anything to dwell on.

Sam pulled open the door and slid in, the seats still damp from his moment of refuge the night before when he’d let the rain in. He found his phone on the floor of the passenger seat, screen sporting a brand new spider web crack from when he’d thrown it, and a blank screen no matter how long he held the power button. He hoped it was just dead and not broken, and pocketed it. Shit. What was he supposed to do now?

Sighing, he started walking his way towards the center of town, knowing he hadn't passed anything resembling a mechanic on the way back from Gabriel's. Cars started appearing, easing by Sam as he walked on the side of the road toward the growing noise of afternoon in the city. In the first gas station he passed, he asked the guy at the counter for directions. He’d swallow his pride and ask before he wandered any longer. He was growing tired of this adventure. It was home he was after, and he hoped it was near.

“Keep on the road you're on, ‘bout a mile or so and you'll find it. Be on your right. Little place though.”

Sam thanked the guy, tossing a few ones onto the counter for the water bottle he’d snagged from a Coca-Cola shaped cooler by the door, and went on his way beneath the heat of the sun. Most of the day he’d spent sleeping and the sun was threatening to disappear soon again. Sam needed to get to the mechanic before they closed, hoping the fix would be easy enough to get him back on the road before night fell once again. His jittery, unsettled feeling had come back full force now that he was outside and moving and it was growing heavier with each step.

He found the mechanic’s shop, small and tucked in between buildings, like the gas station attendant had said, and he swung the door open, a bell calling out his arrival.

“Oh, sorry. We’re closing,” a blond, young man standing at the counter said. He smiled at Sam, and a streak of grease decorated his face. A pang of cold hit Sam, seeing the same streak on his brother’s cheek a hundred times over.

“My car broke down a two miles from here and I walked the whole way. Do you think you could tow it back here at least? Just so it doesn’t stay on the road for another night? I wouldn’t ask, but its right at the highway exit and someone may not see it and get themselves hurt,” Sam asked.

“Yeah, I can do that. I won’t be able to do any fixing ‘til tomorrow though.”

“That’s more than fine. Thank you.”

Sam rode with the guy, Alfie, and he listened to the man chatter the whole way to his car and all the while he hitched it up to the truck.

“So, you ever been here before?” Alfie asked.

Sam shook his head and was met with an onslaught of stories about the faces Alfie had grown acquainted with here. Old men with newspaper skin and young children that stole their parent cars and crashed them in an instant. Alfie told stories like he couldn’t breathe without them and Sam was in equal parts mesmerized and jealous. Why couldn’t he do that? It seemed he had no stories to tell, the only ones he had he wanted to keep close to himself. Sam grabbed his duffel bag from the cab of the car and rode back to the mechanic’s shop since he had nowhere else to go.

“I’ll come back tomorrow afternoon to see what the damage is.” Sam said.

“Yeah, I’ll have her diagnosed by then,” Alfie said and bid Sam a goodnight, locking the shop behind them both as they walked out.

“Thank you again,” Sam called as they parted ways.

“No problem Sam. Stay safe out there.” The sound of Alfie’s whistling floated through the night behind Sam, bright and sharp in the silence.

Sam heaved his bag onto his shoulder and started his walk towards town to find a hotel. It was odd, though. He hadn’t passed a single one in the several miles of the town he’d tread as of yet and usually there were quite a few dotting the side roads that stemmed off highways for the stranded and the tired. For people like him. Some places liked the quiet, though, and this seemed one of them. Sam would’ve liked that had he been a resident, but being a stranger, he had no place to stay.

The bag on his shoulder, heavy, slowed him down, and the sun grew warm as it set beneath the lake, lashing out as it disappeared below the horizon. Sam wiped the sweat dotting his forehead and shrugged the bag higher as it slipped down his arm. The faster he got to the hotel, the faster he could shower and rest his weary legs.

A car pulled up beside him, easing to a slow crawl and too close for comfort. Sam sidestepped, putting more distance between himself and the car, not knowing anyone in this godforsaken town. Whoever was in the car was only going to cause trouble. Plus, his laptop was in his bag and his wallet in his pocket. They were all he had. He couldn’t afford to lose any of it. He could hardly afford to pay the towing fee, not to mention however much it would cost to fix it and his impending hotel stay.

“Sam! Sam! It's me, hop in,” Gabriel called from the open window of the car. Sam relaxed, recognizing the voice immediately and bent to look through the rolled down window.

“Oh, hey Gabriel. Nah, its fine. I’m just heading to the hotel,” Sam gestured forward, down the sidewalk, hoping there actually _was_ a hotel that way so he didn’t make a fool of himself. It wasn’t like he cared about Gabriel’s opinion, but if he was wrong he’d have no other excuse to give, would have no choice but to get in the car. He already owed Gabriel more than he could say.

“That place is expensive as fuck and not worth half the price they’re asking. Why don’t you just stay at my place? I can’t say I’ve got a surplus of room, but we can make it work. How long is your car out?”

“Not sure, Alfie said he’d look at it tomorrow.”

Gabriel nodded. “Alfie’s a good guy, he’ll get it done as soon as he can. Get in.”

Sam hesitated still, hand wrapped around the door handle.

“Sam the hotel isn't for another two miles. Get your tall ass in the damn car before I make you get in.”

Sam rolled his eyes, knowing very well that Gabriel wouldn't be able to force him in the car. Sam had a good foot on him. “I'd like to see you try.”

Gabriel smirked before climbing out of his car and arriving at Sam’s side within an instant. He slid Sam’s bag from his shoulder with ease while Sam was still trying to process what the hell was going on and tossed into the passenger side of the car, leaving the door hanging open. He went back around to the driver’s seat without a word. All Sam could do was let out a squeak of protest and watch it happen around him. Gabriel grinned, dimpled and dancing, and Sam sighed as he slid into the passenger seat and shut the door behind him.

“Told ya I could get you in here. Want lunch first? Or I guess it’s dinnertime now ain’t it? There's a great burger place around the corner you _have_ to try.”

Sam shrugged. “I could eat.”

“That's the spirit,” Gabriel said with a cheer and a little wiggling dance from the driver’s seat. Sam couldn't help a little smile at that.

Gabriel let the silence between them settle in the car, turning up the music to cover the emptiness as he drove and for that Sam was grateful. He didn’t have to try to come up with things to talk about, instead watching the strange town pass by out the window and listening to Gabriel’s soft singing beside him. The town was an odd mix of old and new. They passed a building, wooden doors and a sign advertising a saloon on the same road as a Verizon, red uniformed employees inside. A dog park next to a bronze and weathered statue of someone from long ago Sam didn’t recognize. Graffiti covered the walls of a barn, faded with years of sun and rain. It was like the modern world had only just dug its long roots into the place, and it wouldn’t bloom until spring. Somehow, it didn’t clash like it might have otherwise. It worked. It felt real here. Like this was the way life was and had always been. Not black and white, but a mash of gray.

Gabriel parked in a deserted parking lot, and Sam frowned, throwing a questioning look at Gabriel as he took in the place. It was plain, white paint chipping away to reveal patches of faded brick, crumbling and disintegrating at the corners. Gravity had worn this place down, and it was not fighting back well. It seemed to sag towards the ground in defeat.

“Don't judge her by her outside, Sammyboy. Foods fantastic. Trust me,” Gabriel said and got out of the car. They walked in together. Sam trying to subtly pat down his pockets to make sure his wallet was with him. Gabriel didn't notice, stepping ahead to hold the door open for Sam.

They slid into a booth in the back of the darkened restaurant, thumping music making it hard to hear the conversations scattered throughout the room and giving it a private feeling. A waitress greeted them within a minute, taking their drink orders with a genuine smile. She was around Sam’s age, blond, with a little snark in her that Sam found really attractive coming from her lips. He caught himself scanning her exposed skin for her soulmate tattoo, something he’d been doing his whole life. He caught a glimpse of a feather tattooed near the bend of her elbow and he let his disappointment flit across his face before reigning it back in. Somehow, every single time, he was still disappointed. No matter the thousands of times it rained, the canyon still eroded. Sam couldn’t help show that for a moment. She walked away after taking their order and Sam caught Gabriel staring at him.

“What’s the deal?” Gabriel asked, shooting his eyes in the direction the waitress, Jess, had gone.

“It’s nothing,” Sam said, tugging his sleeve over his own tattoo on his wrist and turning to scan the rest of the room. Gabriel caught his movement, though, and recognition flashed behind his eyes.

“Ah, so it’s a soulmate thing. Whatcha got? Something embarrassing?”

Sam shook his head. “No, it’s not embarrassing.”

“Oh, come on Samsquatch, what is it? Is it lips? Someone’s name? Oh! Does the pretty boy have a pretty flower to match?” Gabriel’s eyes danced as he spoke, but the room felt too close, too exposed to be talking about this.

“No,” Sam said, and left it at that.

“Sam? Shit, sorry, I sometimes just let whatever comes to my head spill out without a filter, just tell me to shut up and I won’t say another word,” Gabriel said, the smile slipping from his face and eyes and morphing into something darker. Who knew anything that gold could look sad too.

“No, it’s just a little personal, is all.”

“And we’re strangers, yeah I get it. So, you got family Sam? Anyone you need to call to let them know what’s going on?”

Sam almost choked when he realized how long it had been since he talked to Dean. He’d be in full panic mode by now. Sam had witnessed it hundreds of times on the nights his father wouldn’t come home long after the sun had reawakened, and sometimes the multiple days after before he showed up again.

“Shit. You got a phone I can borrow?”

Gabriel nodded, slipping his hands into the pocket of his jeans and handing his phone over. Sam slid from the booth to find a place with less music and less ears, telling Gabe just to order him whatever he was getting if he didn't make it back in time. He dialed as he walked, the number ingrained in his brain since childhood. Dean had made Sam recite it to him over and over as they fell asleep on nights their father’s bed was empty and had been for days. He wanted Sam to be able to reach him if anything had ever happened, mowing lawns for enough money to buy two of those throw away phones that could only call one number, one for each of them. When Dean upgraded his phone to an actual contract, he paid extra to get the same number and hadn’t changed it since. Dean answered on the first ring as Sam pushed through the door outside.

“Sam?”

“Yeah, it’s me Dean.”

“Shit, Sam. I’ve been so worried. What the hell happened?”

“Sorry, my car broke down in the middle of the storm and I had no reception to call you. I uh, met this guy, Gabriel. Long story, but he’s letting me crash at his place.”

“You trust him?” Sam remembered too how many times Dean told him about strangers and the dangers they held. Their father had gotten into trouble over the years at the hands of strangers he pissed off and Dean wouldn’t let Sam fall into anything close to that.

Sam looked through the window, catching a glimpse of Gabriel, tucked into the booth inside. He looked up, caught Sam staring and waved with a smile. “Yeah, Dean. For some reason, I do.”

“So, what’s the deal with your car? Need me to come pick you up?”

“I don’t know yet, the mechanic closed already. They said they’d take a look at it tomorrow.”

“Okay, keep me posted. I have a few sick days racked up at the shop that I can use, just say the word.”

“Will do, thanks Dean. My phone’s dead and possibly broken. I may have...thrown it, so I’m not sure how soon I’ll be able to get in touch.”

“It’s not like I wait by the phone for you to call, Sammy,” Dean scoffed. Sam let the lie hang in the air. They both could feel it. Both knew just how big of a lie that was. Knew how many times Dean would sleep with his phone in hand when Sam was at a sleepover or a school trip or, Sam assumed, last night.

“I know. I just didn’t want to worry you.”

“You always worry me,” Dean said softly. He cleared his throat. “Well, listen, I’ve got to go. Talk to you soon.”

“Yeah, yeah. Bye Dean.” Sam hurried back to the table to find his food waiting for him.

“Thanks,” Sam said as he handed Gabe’s phone back to him.

“Sure thing, kiddo,” Gabriel smiled and pocketed his phone before digging into his meal with an enthusiasm that had Sam worrying about choking hazards and the location of the nearest emergency room. Gabriel caught his worried glance and grinned a dimpled grin.

“What? It’s delicious and I’ve got a big mouth.”

Sam rolled his eyes, though still a bit worried about having to do the Heimlich, and dug into his own burger, finding it surprisingly delicious. Gabriel, it seemed, had good taste. They ate in comfortable silence and when they finished, Gabriel ordered dessert for both of them. Some sort of chocolate cake thing with ice cream and chocolate sauce, the whole nine yards. Sam had a few bites and pushed the plate towards Gabriel, who he’d noticed was taking the smallest bites possible and just staring at the damn thing. He looked up when Sam pushed it his way, but Sam just placed a hand over his stomach like he was full and watched Gabriel attack the plate with abandon.

The bill came and Sam tried to drag Gabe into conversation to distract him from getting to it first. It was only fair.

“So, astronomy how’s that going?”

Gabriel frowned. “Fine?”

“And the lighthouse?”

“Still standing…What’s going on?”

Sam accidentally let his gaze shoot to the bill on the edge of the table as his fingers danced across, feeling for the bill. Gabriel realized what was happening.

“Oh you little shit.” Gabriel’s eyes widened and both men lunged for it at the same time, Sam beating Gabriel just by sheer arm reach. He masked his wince as he read the total and left his card, praying there’d be enough left to cover the repairs his car needed for tomorrow. He could always ask Dean to send him a bit extra, though he hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

Gabriel tried to protest, but Sam shut that shit down with a glare, handing the bill to Jess with a pointed smile. Sam hadn’t ever seen a man sulk like Gabriel did across the table and it only filled him with glee. They headed back to the car, brushing shoulders and Gabriel, being an idiot, opened Sam’s door for him and bowed.

“My lord, your chariot awaits,” he said in an absolutely terrible British accent and Sam snorted.

“Chariots were driven by horses, my good man. Does that make you a horse?”

“You caught me. Beneath these hands are cloven hooves.” Gabriel wiggled his fingers at Sam and their laughter rang through the car.

“So, I’ve got to go to work when we get back, but you can do whatever you’d like. I’ve got books a plenty and maybe some video games if that’s more your thing,” Gabriel said once they took off.

“Nah, that’s okay. I’ve got some work to do myself,” Sam said, Kevin’s voice an ever-persistent ringing in the back of his mind each time he thought about writing. If only had an idea, a thought, _something_ to go on, he’d be okay. But the well was dry and the bucket was empty. If only the rain from last night could replenish the metaphorical one in his mind. Rain that brought inspiration. If that were the case, he’d move to Seattle and write until his hands fell off.

“Alright, sounds good. Just knock on the door if you need anything.”

“Sure thing, thanks.”

Gabriel parked on the dirt road out front and they walked into the lighthouse, Sam lugging his bag with him. Gabriel tossed a wave towards Sam and started up the stairs, skipping one with each of his bouncing strides. Sam listened to his footsteps echo, the staircase rattling with each step, as he set his bag down beside the couch. He wasn’t about to take Gabriel’s bed again, not two nights in a row.

He found an outlet nearby, in the wall beside the bookshelf, and plugged his phone in, then pulled his laptop out and did the same. While he waited for his laptop to start up, he went into the bathroom to shower the day’s grime and sweat from his body, making a mental note to go to the store and pick up little bottles of his own shampoo and soap if the car was going to take any longer than a day. He brushed his teeth while he was in there and threw his dirty clothes back into his bag so Gabriel didn’t get any washing machine oriented thoughts and cleaned Sam’s clothes again.

He sat on the couch, now in comfortable sweats and a t-shirt that actually fit, and he pulled his laptop onto his lap. As he sat, he felt a calmness wash over him, there underneath the stars now blinking awake above and the sound of the lake sloshing quietly up onto rocks outside. He didn’t feel the need to move like he did at home, didn’t tap his fingers or bounce his knee. He was still and he let his mind wander up into the stars above and he found his fingers typing, flowing across the keyboard with words about the stars and the things you find beneath them. Rogues and masked people and lovers falling into darkened beds. People of the night thriving beneath the stars.

He was startled out of the trance that had fallen over him when Gabriel opened the door above him and came rattling down the steps. It had been a few hours and Sam realized he hadn’t moved much by the way his limbs felt stiff and his neck sore, not to mention the aching in his wrists. He hit save and shut the word document just as Gabriel came up behind him, flexing his wrists to get the kinks that had formed out.

“Hey, get some work done?” Gabriel asked.

“Yeah, actually, I did. Something about this place makes it easy to write.”

“Must be the water,” Gabriel said, heading into the kitchen. “Want some hot chocolate?”

“Nah, I’m good,” Sam said. “How’d work go for you?”

“Good. I’ve got to meet my boss tomorrow night, but I don’t think I did anything wrong. This time.”

Sam smiled and clicked on his email to find two from Kevin in the last 8 hours, both equally supportive and guilt-inducing. He typed out a quick reply, telling Kevin what had happened regarding his car and his current living situations to keep him updated. As a last minute thought, he attached the little free-write session he’d just finished, just to prove he was trying. That had to count for something. It would get Kevin to back off a little.

“You sure about that hot chocolate?” Gabriel called from the kitchen.

“Yeah, but I’ll take a water if you don’t mind.”

“Of course, cups are in the cabinet above me, ice in the freezer if you want it.”

Sam stood and stretched, his shoulders popping as he did, and he walked to the kitchen. Reaching above Gabe to get a glass, Sam misjudged the space, though, off kilter from sitting for so long and pressed too close to Gabriel, their bodies flush, Sam’s front to Gabriel’s back. Gabriel stilled before letting out a laugh.

“If you wanted to get close to me, all you had to do was ask,” Gabe said with a wink.

There was one sure way Sam knew he’d been writing well and for a while. The voice in his head would be stuck in writing mode and he’d think in prose for hours. It was happening now. Gabriel was warm against him, smelling like fireside stories and the world just after rain when everything was still silently drinking it all in. His eyelashes fluttered against his cheek and Sam thought that had to be the softest, gentlest thing he’d ever seen. More than silk. More than sand. His voice had vibrated through his back when he’d talked, softly so. Not an earthquake, just a soft rumble. Far off thunder not yet close enough to rattle the world he lived in, the new world he had just found. Only to rattle a world far off and remind Sam that it wasn’t in his own. The stars shone through the glass ceiling and Sam could see the North Star directly overhead and he remembered what he was here for and what he was not. What could be and what could not. No matter how beautiful the man looked in front of him, shrouded in starlight and smiling softly.

“And ruin the surprise?” Sam shot back, backing away until they weren’t even within touching distance any longer. His brain was stuck in writing land and he was waxing poetic about a stranger. He filled his cup with lukewarm water, skipping ice completely, and drained it in one gulp, trying to quell his fast beating heart. Because he was tired and his day had been full of adventure and he had been writing. That was all it was.

Gabriel sat beside him on the couch, eyes bright and alight, and smiled at Sam and well, maybe that wasn’t the whole story after all.


	4. Chapter 4

Sam jolted awake from a peaceful sleep and the sun was already high in the sky, burning through the ceiling. He  kicked the blanket from his feet and wiped the sleep from his face. It was always strange waking up somewhere new, but this time it was less disorienting. He felt comfortable waking up here. He supposed it was the stars that made him feel so. He showered quickly, finding Gabriel asleep in his own bed, sunlight blanketing him in all shades of gold. It reminded Sam of golden hands and the way he always thought the sun would make the perfect Midas, its touch too far way to kill, but just to take people’s breath away and make them beautifully gold. It was working, his breath gone from his chest. The Midas sun outside would be happy, another job well done.

He took off to the mechanic to find out what the verdict was before he stared until the gold was gone. It would never be gone, not with his eyes, his smile, and the summer he held beneath his skin. Sam would be staring forever.

Outside, the world was awake, though it seemed far away. Gabriel lived miles from the center of the city, miles from the bustle. Sam could hear the cars and the people and the life there, but it was muffled by their distance. Here, he could hear the lake, the wind rustling the leaves across the dirt road, swore he could hear the whisper of clouds sailing across the sky. Flowers grew with the grass on the shoreline in bright rebellious pops of purple. They fought their way to the sky and so they screamed triumph in their color. Sam noticed. Of course he noticed them. He always noticed the bright and the alive things of the world.

He passed the graffiti covered barn and stopped in front of it to take it all in. The wall was covered ten times over, layer after layer of paint splashed and sprayed across it. He could pick out two styles, two different people’s hands, each taking their own color scheme. One with the swirling softly angled blues and greens. The other, sharp edged and cutting reds, yellows, and oranges. The sun and the ocean fought on the wall, or they should have. Somehow, it looked more like love than anything as the soft blues melted into the squares of red. In the corner, a boat with a sharp red sail disappeared on a wave of blue, carried towards the horizon.

Sam turned away and continued through the dust haze of the afternoon and pushed through the glass door of Alfie’s Auto as a blast of cool air hit him.

“Afternoon Mr. Winchester, how are you today?” Alfie greeted wiping his hands on a tattered rag.

“Morning Alfie. What's the verdict?” Sam asked. The shop was painted yellow, bright and cheery and out of place among the other hundreds of other shops Sam had been in his road-bound life. It was nice, though. Refreshing. This town was full of things he'd never seen before. All towns were he supposed, he'd just never stayed long enough to find them.

“Bad news,” Alfie said.

“How bad?” Sam braced himself.

“Well, you see it’s a problem with-” He started, but Sam cut him off.

“My brother’s a mechanic, Alfie. He's been talking about cars my entire life and I still don’t understand a word. How long?” Sam grinned. Alfie returned the smile.

“A week. I need to get a part shipped from two cities over or it would have been a quick fix.”

Sam nodded and fell silent. Just his luck. He takes off to find his soulmate and ends up trapped in a town that doesn’t even have a motel.

“Sam, I’m sorry, but there’s really nothing I can do to speed things up. I promise this isn’t my doing, it’s just I tried the town over and they didn’t have your model--”

“No, no. You’ve been nothing but kind. Thank you, Alfie. I just didn’t expect to get stranded here is all.”

“Oh, you were traveling! Where are you staying while you’re here?”

“The lighthouse ‘bout a mile and a half that way, by the lake. With Gabriel.”

“Neat,” Alfie said, “I didn’t know anyone lived there.”

“You must have seen him, small town like this. Yay high, dimples and golden eyes?”

Alfie frowned behind the counter. “Doesn’t ring a bell. But, hey, maybe I just don’t remember. I’ve got a terrible memory for those things. Plus, I don't really get out much.”

Sam nodded and said goodbye, leaving his phone number in case he got the damn thing working again, and started his long walk back to Gabriel’s. His stomach growled angrily, so Sam turned on his heel to find a place for lunch, figuring he’d bring some home for Gabriel when he woke up. 

He found a pizza place just past Alfie’s, their sign of a guy wearing a white apron crooked and rusting. Sam couldn't help but imagine the sign falling and crushing someone into a pancake like in the cartoons he used to watch in hotel rooms late at night. It was just creaky enough to justify that sort of thought and Sam swung the door open quickly just in case. Inside, he ordered a large, half pepperoni for himself and, on a guess, pineapple and ham for Gabriel. If he didn’t like it, then there’d be plenty of pepperoni to share between the two of them, no harm done.

He headed back, pizza box burning his hand through the cardboard and the smell of melted cheese wafting up, making his mouth water. Sam spotted a payphone tucked behind the shop, glad to know where one was in town just in case. His phone’s screen was still blank even after he charged it all night. He'd need to fiddle with it and see if he could get it working, if only just to call Dean. He couldn’t spare the money to pick up a new one until he paid for his car. It was fine, Gabriel had one he could borrow and now, he could walk into town if he needed.

When he got back, Sam set the pizza on the kitchen counter and checked on Gabriel, finding him still asleep despite the sun blaring still through the window, drooling with his mouth wide open. Sam went back out to pack his things, knowing once Gabriel found out just how long it would be, he’d kindly drop Sam off at the nearest hotel and blow him a kiss goodbye. One night with a stranger was polite, two was kindness, an entire week was insanity. Sam kept his laptop out, though, and scrolled through his emails while he ate a slice of pizza, still steaming and almost too hot to eat, but delicious.

He got an email back from Kevin and he almost choked when he read it.

_Sam,_

_The snippet you sent is exactly what we’re looking for here at Scribe. I showed it to my boss and she said with some polishing, it could turn into something really good. She needs a rough draft of something longer (a few thousand words preferably) within the week and then she’ll decide where to go from there and we can keep you on our team. I know you can do it, Sam. We believe in you and can’t wait to read what you have._

_Kevin_

Frowning, Sam opened the document he’d attached and scanned it. Not bad, he thought as he fell into the beginnings of an idea that could maybe be something with a little work. Sam knew not to get his hopes up. He’d had many stories that started out promising, one getting well into the tens of thousands of words before sputtering into dust. He said so to Kevin and left it at that for the day. He felt at peace here and didn’t want Kevin’s nagging to send the sparkling haze crumbling into nothing.

Gabriel padded into the room, ruffling Sam’s hair as he walked by. His own hair was sticking up and Sam had the strongest urge to smooth it down. To see just how soft it would be beneath his fingers.

“Oooh, pineapple and ham? My favorite. How’d you know?”

Sam shrugged, “Lucky guess.”

Gabriel rummaged around in the fridge, emerging with a can of soda for himself and a bottle of water that he slid across the counter to Sam who caught it. Gabe cracked the can open with a fizz and took a sip.

“So, listen. I’ve got some bad news,” Sam said.

Gabriel’s eyebrows shot together in a frown. “What? What is it? Did you find out I was dying? Of course you didn't that wouldn't make any sense. Are you dying?” He gasped, “Oh my god don’t tell me the sweets shop down the way burnt down? Is it your brother? Is it my brother? Don’t leave me hanging, Sam, my heart can’t take it.”

Sam rolled his eyes at the theatrics as Gabe laid back against the counter, hand to his forehead. “Turns out my car won’t be fixed for another week. I’ve already packed my stuff so if you could drop me at the hotel whenever you get a chance that would be great. If not, I can walk. Honestly, yeah that’s better. You’ve got work and I don’t want to intrude.”

“Oh, that’s all? You got me worked up over nothing. Why would I drop you at the hotel?” Gabriel asked, genuine confusion written all over his face.

“Because a week is a long time for me to crash on your couch?”

“So, we’ll share my bed then. It’s plenty big, as long as you don’t mind cuddling” Gabriel said, waggling his eyebrows.

“You know that’s not what I meant. I don’t want to put you out in any way. You’ve already been too kind.”

“Oh, shut it, Sam. I’m a grumpy old man and if I haven’t scared you off by now then you’re stuck with me. Stay here. It’ll be cheaper and you won’t have to pay for TV to entertain yourself if you’ve got me around.”

“Now that I don’t doubt,” Sam said, snorting, and he let the conversation rest where it was. Why spend money if Gabriel was willing to let him stay? That would be just plain stupid.

“Alright, well I’ve gotta get ready for work. Got a meeting with my boss today before the sunsets. You need anything while I’m out?”

“Nope, I’ve got everything I need,” Sam said, though his paper-thin toothpaste bottle said otherwise. He’d go in the morning to find a store.

Sam could hear Gabriel puttering around in his bedroom, muttering about socks and keys and letting out the occasional expletive as he stubbed his toe and went hopping around the room. Sam listened, a small smile spreading across his face before he noticed.

“Hey would it be alright if I went up to the roof? See what the view’s like,” Sam called.

“Sure. I’ll need the space to work later but it's all yours till then.”

“Yeah, yeah of course. No problem,” Sam said.

“Hey, maybe while I work you could get some grub and come back up and we can have dinner up there? Just a thought.”

“That would be cool, yeah. Any preference as to the food?”

“Nah, we seem to have similar tastes. I’d be fine just eating the leftover pizza so anything beyond that would be a luxury. I’ll leave some money on the counter for whatever you decide.”

Sam laughed and gathered his laptop and water bottle and climbed the spiral staircase to the top, lifting the trap-style door easily and emerging onto the roof. Up there, the roof was surrounded by black steel railing to match the stairs, skinny and intricate designs made of the cold steel. The light shot from the center, a boxy container around the light fixture, but the rest of the area was big enough to fit both him and Gabriel with wiggle room too. It would be plenty big for a star-studded picnic.

Resting his hands on the railing, his laptop at his feet, Sam could see for miles and miles, across the lake and to the rocky shoreline that met the water on the other side. Thick trees covered the land over there, and a city just barely visible lit up in the far distance, glittering and surreal in the afternoon sun. Wind drifted, brushing Sam’s skin, softly across the land and the water waved gently with it, small waves licking at the rocks below. The sky was clear and so was his mind, peacefully, silently so.

Sam stared out, watching the water move for a while before sitting against the walls of the light fixture and soaking up the sun’s rays as they seeped into his skin. He let his newfound idea play through his head, wandering this way and that through everything he knew about the night sky, just getting a feel for it. It was growing hands but still had no body yet. Something about the stars and finding home and what happened in between. It was all very fuzzy at this point, but he liked this part of writing the best. When he could just let his imagination wander across the hills and valleys and go up into the sky. It was freedom at its finest and he reveled in it.

Gabriel emerged from below just as the sun shot out orange flares across the horizon as it drowned behind the earth. He looked to Gabriel, a smile on his face. He felt so free here, so soft and light, and Gabriel returned the smile, his dimples coming out into the sunlight. Sam’s breath hitched as Gabe’s eyes met the sun in the orange sky and glowed.

“Hey Sammy, we still on for tonight?” Gabe asked.

“Yeah,” Sam squeaked, clearing his throat, “definitely. I'll be up in a few hours, three enough?”

“I can rush it and do two. Boss doesn't have to know.”

Sam laughed and retreated down the stairs, catching Gabriel staring pointedly at his ass with a smirk. He rolled his eyes and shut the door above him. But he was laughing and it felt good to laugh again. He had forgotten what that sounded like, the way it was light in his stomach. Downstairs, he poked around the pantry and kitchen to find not much of anything except tin-foil wrapped leftovers and two cans of whipped cream. Figures. Man doesn't have bread but whipped cream he's got plenty.

Sam walked to the store as the stars started to appear overhead, each blinking awake in their own time until the sky was full and calmly sparkling. He liked the flowers because they screamed at the world to look at them. He liked the sky for the opposite reason. It did not ask people to notice it, instead offered light to those below and let people stare as they pleased. It had been there long before the humans arrived and so, maybe, it was staring back at the wide-eyed creatures the universe hatched, staring in wonder the same way humans did.

He grabbed the basics, some bread, beef, and a few veggies planning on just doing a stir-fry kind of thing on the stove. He also grabbed a few toiletries for himself. Shampoo, body wash, and a razor. As he walked to checkout, he grabbed a thing of cookie dough. Dessert was always a safe option with Gabe, Sam had already learned.

On the way back, arms laden with bags that dug their way into his skin, he stopped by the lake. From between the rocks, he gathered the purple flowers that stood tall in his hand. He'd put them on the table at Gabe's. Brighten the place up. His color scheme was all shades of gray and Sam thought the purple would add a little something to the space. He tried not to feel like a teenager on his first date, bouquet in hand as he knocked on his date's door. Reminded himself they weren't anything. They were just flowers he wanted to give to a man who let him stay when he had nowhere else to go. That's all.

He went back and started dinner, putting the flowers in a coffee mug full of water, unable to find a vase no matter how many cabinets he scrounged through. The mug was tall and plain white and it looked good in the center of the gray marble counter, purple flowers sticking out. While he let dinner simmer, he dug out a pair of jeans and a long sleeve black shirt from his suitcase and changed into them. He'd been planning to save the outfit for his first date with his soulmate, but that wasn't likely to happen anytime soon. Besides, sweats didn't feel right for dinner under the stars. He’d been living his sweatpants for what felt like weeks and jeans were a nice change. Cleaner too. He’d just wash the outfit before he left and everything would be like new.

“Dinner ready?” Gabriel called down from above.

“Yeah, could use some help carrying up it though,” Sam called back, pulling the cookies from the oven and clicking off the stove. The stir-fry he scooped onto two plates along with some rice he’d decided to make last minute and carried those to the stairs.

“Oh, cookies? You sure do know the way to a man’s heart,” Gabriel said, leaning over the still steaming cookies to smell them.

“I’ll come back for those when they’re cool, grab a blanket will you?” Sam said, a smile creeping across his face.

“Oh those flowers are beautiful,” Gabe said stopping to stare at them. Sam hadn’t been sure he would even notice, but his face grew warm when he did.

“Yeah, I uh, saw them by the lake and thought the room could use some color.”

“You know those are Pasque Flowers, right? Grow in the winter, even through the snow. A signal of spring to come.”

“Why are they growing now? There's no snow,” Sam said, turning to look at the flowers again.

“No there certainly isn't.” They fell silent, each lost and staring at the flowers on the counter. “Anyway, a blanket?”

“Please,” Sam replied, starting up the stairs.

Together they brought everything up to the roof and laid the blanket over the windowed ground on, the one that let starlight shine through to the living room. It was weird, sitting on glass. Like it could shatter any moment and let gravity force them plummeting to the ground. It wouldn’t though, but it could.

“So, how was your meeting?”

“Good. Let it slip you were staying here and got a warning about ‘letting you interfere’ and ‘professionalism’ as if I was any more professional before a giant started staying in my house.”

“Sorry. I didn't mean to cause you trouble,” Sam winced.

“Absolutely not. I've been called many things, but a kiss ass is not one of them. Though, if it was yours I might have to rethink that,” Gabe said with a wink and a grin. Sam blushed and started to eat, eyes on his plate.

“So, Sam. What really brought you here?” Gabriel asked after they’d been silent. The light blinked into the sky, lighting them up in heartbeat flashes of yellow.

“My car broke down?” Sam said.

“Haha, real funny Sammich. But, really, why were you in the area in the first place?”

“I was just...traveling.”

“Any particular destination?”

Sam shrugged. “Not really. My brother found his soulmate and I figured he’d want some time to figure it all out without me underfoot. That and well, this.”

He lifted his sleeve and flashed his tattoo at Gabriel, waiting for the usual things like ‘oh you poor thing’ or ‘cool tat’ or ‘want to see mine?’, but he got none of that. Gabriel remained blank, no reaction for one long moment before he broke the weighted silence.

“Ah, looking for love then?”

“Looking for home, really,” Sam said and leaned against the rounded wall and watching the light blink out at the lake. “After my uh, my mom died, my dad fell apart. People always talk about what happens if you don’t find your soulmate, but they never talk about what happens if you lose them. We never stayed in one place for longer than a week, his body, his soul, searching for the soul mate that was no longer there. It was impossible for him to cope, to live a half-life.”

Gabriel was quiet as he leaned back against the light and gave Sam the space to move the conversation as he wanted.

“So why astronomy?” Sam asked. He’d toed the line and now it was time to retreat to more stable ground.

Gabriel shrugged. “I’m the only one who can do what I do.”

“And what exactly do you do?” Sam asked.

“That, Samoose, is classified information. I tell you, and my boss kills both of us.”

As he said it, the sound of thunder rumbled from the sky despite the lack of clouds. Even the stars seemed to tremble with the force of it. Gabriel pointed up, a grin that didn’t quite sit right on his face. “See?”

Sam laughed. Perfect timing. Gabriel laid back on the blanket and pointed up at the stars. “Do you know the constellations Sam?”

“Vaguely,” Sam said, scooting down to lay beside Gabriel, the blanket soft beneath him.

“So, Cephus?”

“Husband to Andromeda, forced to listen to her for eternity because he didn’t save their daughter.”

“And Aquia?”

“Messenger of Zeus, right?”

“And that one, there?” Gabriel tilted his head towards Sam and traced a line of stars across the lower part of the sky.

“No, I don’t know that one.”

“The Line, that one’s called. Once, long ago, the man who put the stars in the sky fell in love with a mortal, a human. He didn’t mean to. No one ever does. And as it always goes, the human fell in love right back. They were happy and happily together and though their love story was epic, it was not long. The human left the night weaver after a fight without backwards glance. Heartbroken, the night weaver let the sky go starless to mirror his grief until Zeus came down to punish him for the havoc he wreaked on the Earth without stars. He’d been warned, when the human first showed up, but the night weaver hadn’t listened. He came down with a fury, wiping all the good memories of the human from the night weaver and leaving him with only the sadness and the brokenness and the empty darkness inside. He forced the night weaver to lay a line of stars in the sky each night to remind him not to cross it ever again.”

Sam was silent, absorbing it all. His voice had grown quiet and heavy, like he was telling Sam more than his words held. Sam was trying to piece it all together, but he didn’t think he had all of them yet. Gabriel kept talking after a moment.

“And there? You know that one?”

Sam shook his head.

“That one’s called Sam Winchester’s Ass, and boy is it magnificent. My favorite one, if I’m being honest.” He grinned at Sam and when they made eye contact, it was their laughter that rattled the stars as it drifted up and through the night sky.

“So The Line?” Sam asked when the laughter died. “That real or made up?”

Gabriel’s smile fell just slightly before he caught it. “I’m not sure yet.”

His answer didn’t make any sense, but Gabriel turned away to scrape at his plate and Sam had a feeling this was something to let go.

“So,” Sam said, sitting up. “Cookies?”

“And whipped cream?” Gabriel asked.

Sam laughed. “And whipped cream. Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

They ate their dessert and traded made up stories of the stars above, getting more and more insane as the sun made its reappearance in the sky, reawakening the world in it’s soft, growing light.

“Whelp, I’m beat. You going down too?” Sam asked. Gabriel shook his head, sitting against the wall and staring out at the lake.

“Okay,” Sam said, starting his descent.

“Night Sam, or well, morning? I don’t know, get some rest.”

“Thanks Gabe, you should get some rest too,” Sam said. Gabriel looked at him, the tiniest smile on his face and waved before turning back to the sun and the water below.


	5. Chapter 5

They went into town, Sam and Gabe together after drinking their coffee the next afternoon. Sam had woken to find Gabriel wide awake and nursing a cup at the kitchen island and looking like he hadn’t slept at all.

“Hey, want to go into town today? I’ll show you around?” he asked.

“Sure,” Sam shrugged. Why not? This way he’d get to see the town from Gabriel’s perspective. Sam was curious to see what he pointed out, what he noticed, and what he didn’t. He was curious to see what sort of town Gabriel lived in, and what sort of town Sam saw passing through, and just how different those may be.

“There’s where I sometimes get takeout. Oh and there. And there too. Oh, and that’s my favorite ice cream shop,” Gabe pointed them out as they walked past a pink-painted shop, spinning ice cream cone on top.

Sam tugged Gabe into the shop by the hand and bought them both ice cream cones that melted onto their hands as they kept walking along the sidewalk towards town. Shouting echoed across the street from somewhere down the way, catching their attention. They followed the cheers and hollers down the sidewalk and up concrete stairs into the local baseball field, overgrown grass taking over the entire field. They stood at the entrance, just listening to the echoing voices of the people scattered among the bleachers.

“Wanna stay and watch?” Gabe asked.

Sam shrugged and led Gabe up into the stands where they sat among a crowd of miss-mashed fans jeering and cheering at the players below. It was an adult league, they soon saw, slow pitch softball. Not the most exciting, but Sam didn’t mind. He watched these people that lived here, who made homes here and laughed here, and he fell in love with every single one of them. The way the tall lanky man on the pitchers mound would smirk with each swing and miss, tossing a wink to the batter if they were friends. The way the first baseman always had his cheek full of sunflower seeds. The way the center fielder, a short Asian woman with a long braid that almost touched the ground was the fastest person Sam had ever seen as she ran to the fence and just barely caught the ball before it sailed over the fence.

“My votes on the gray team,” Gabriel said after they’d watched an inning.

“Going against Big Ben and Bat-Out-of-Hell Tina, no way. My votes on green.”

“You’ve never been more wrong. Let’s make a bet out of it.”

“You’re on. What do I get when I win?”

“When I win, I get to cash it in for any favor I want.”

“Fine, I want the same when _I_ win.” The shook on it and turned back to the game.

They watched the entire game, cheering just as loud as the local fans around them. A group of children running amok while their parents played gravitated closer and closer until they were hanging all over Sam and Gabe, sticky fingers and sweet smiles.

A little girl started to play with Sam’s hair, pulling it into a bun on top of his head and Sam giggled. He looked up to find Gabriel grinning at him, something like fondness in his eyes. He caught Sam’s eyes and Sam smiled back, the two of them seeming to freeze time around them. He wished he could bottle this, this moment, and keep it forever in his pocket. Gabe smiling at him, kids all around, the sun warm but softly so. There were days he remembered from his childhood and they always felt like this. A loud crack sounded from the field and cheers erupted, pulling Gabe’s attention away from Sam and to the field below. He was still smiling, though, and Sam could see a faint pink in his cheeks. Must be the afternoon sun.

“Hey, Tina hit a homer,” Gabe said, looking at Sam. “Guess you were right.”

“I get a favor then,” Sam said, bumping Gabe with his shoulder.

“You sure do, Sammy. Got any idea what you want to cash it in for?”

“Not yet. Think I’ll save it for something special.”

After a moment, Gabe turned to the little girl behind Sam with her soft giggling and messy hair.

“Want me to teach you how to braid Sammy’s hair?”

She squeaked, little hands clapping at the idea. Sam sighed, ready for the knots he’d have to brush out later. Gabe stood and sat, knees on each side of Sam, and pulled his back until Sam’s arms were on his thighs and his hands were working, soft, through his hair.

“Alright, so you take it into three sections like this,” Gabe said, laughter in his voice while his hands separated a chunk near Sam’s forehead. Sam hadn’t let anyone braid his hair, though the offers were not lacking. He thought he’d feel silly doing it, but he only felt calm while Gabe’s fingers worked. He found himself sighing into the touch, dreading the moment his hands would disappear. Sam’s eyes slid closed, the rest of the world no long existing for a few minutes.

“There, all done,” Gabe declared, hands now on Sam’s shoulders. Sam turned around to the girl.

“How’s it look?”

He was met with giggling and he didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. He looked at Gabe who just smiled. “You look great, Sammy.”

The braid was tied back by a pink hair tie Gabe had borrowed from the girl’s little wrists, but Sam left it in after she told him he looked like a prince.

The game ended soon after, the children scattering with shrieks to find their parents, all of them disappearing with little waves to them both. Sam and Gabe waved back and walked out of the stadium with the rest of the fans. An older couple with wrinkled hands walked in front of them slowly, though they didn’t mind. They had nowhere else to be.

“So, Tina. What’s her story?” Gabriel asked as they walked, shoulder to shoulder. The sun was setting so they’d turned in the direction they’d come and started back towards the lighthouse. Gabe had to work soon.

Sam shrugged. “Don’t know her.”

“Come on, Sam. You’re supposed to be the writer here. Write her story.”

“Uh, I don’t know,” Sam said, knowing Gabriel wouldn’t take that for an answer.

“Seriously? How about this, give her a good life. Best life you can imagine in as few words as possible.”

Sam took a breath, debating whether he should say what he was about to. Shrugging, he decided just to say it. “Okay, sure. Best life in a few words? She is loved. And the people that she loves don’t leave her. Not this time. Not ever again.”

Gabriel opened his mouth to respond, before shutting it again. Without a word he wrapped his hand around Sam’s and squeezed, flashing a smile before letting it go. Sam’s heart stuttered in his chest and he kept his gaze forward, on the cracked sidewalk passing below his feet.

“That is a good life,” Gabe said finally, and he did not disturb the encroaching night with his voice. No, Sam could hardly hear him it was so gentle. Sam had shared too much in so little words and it left him feeling raw. Exposed. From an outsider’s point of view, they were walking normally, if quietly. Sam could feel they were much farther away than before, their shoulders no longer brushing, nor their fingers. He wrapped his arms around himself and they walked back in silence.

Back in the house, Gabe went upstairs and Sam stayed down. He would write. He had to write. He found the words easy to come by and quick off his fingers, the story’s beginning developing as he wrote it in a way much better than he had planned. At this rate, he’d have enough to send to Kevin after one more writing session as long as it all went well again. Here, in the star speckled living room, he was just hopeful enough that it would.

* * *

Later, as the night bled into morning, Gabriel disappeared into the bathroom to shower and Sam found himself poking through the drawers of the house. He’d noticed something off about the place earlier and needed to confirm a suspicion he’d had. Through drawers, cabinets, and little nooks, Sam knew he’d been right. Gabriel didn’t have any pictures. Not any of family or friends. Not even of a landscape or one of those sailboat pictures that would actually be appropriate here beside the water. Not in his desk drawers or on his shelves or anywhere. There weren’t any personal pieces around the place, just Gabe’s books scattered around and a few pads of paper filled with blank pages. That was all. Now that he’d seen it, he couldn’t unsee it and the place felt hollow as he moved through it. Like his footsteps echoed not because of the high ceiling but because of the empty spaces that weren’t supposed to be so.

Sam retreated to the couch and waited as Gabriel moved around, trying to find the right way to ask about it without overstepping his boundaries.

“Hey Gabe?” Sam called.

“What's up?” He asked poking his head around the doorframe, just a pair of jeans set low on his hips, torso exposed and water dotted. Sam did not stare. He did not. He did however let his eyes dance across the skin Gabe was presenting for a completely reasonable and perfectly normal amount of time thank you very much.

“Don’t take this the wrong way but, why don't you have any pictures around here?” Sam said, tearing his eyes from the soft skin he was faced with. Gabe had to have seen him staring, he definitely was staring, but he didn’t move so Sam assumed he was all right with it. He would’ve put a shirt on if he minded, right?

Gabriel shrugged. “Don't have any I want out.”

“So no family or anything?”

“Not really,” he said with a shrug. “My family's kind of a great big bag of dicks if I'm being honest.”

Sam nodded and Gabriel went back to getting ready. His heart ached for Gabriel, alone in this big, wide world. The moon had the stars to keep it company, but what of the sun?

“Borrowing your phone if that’s cool?” Sam called after a few minutes of silence while he listened to Gabriel rummage through different drawers in his dresser on the other side of the wall. Gabriel appeared in the doorway. “Just need to call my brother.”

“Not calling the FBI? I’ve got my suspicions about you Winchester.”

“And what would the FBI want from you?”

“That’s for you to know.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Fine, I pinky swear I am not part of the FBI nor am I spying on you for them.”

“Do you index-finger swear? They’re more valuable and therefore more binding.”

“Sure, I index pointer finger swear or whatever,” Sam said.

Gabriel held out his index finger and waited, eyebrows raised. Sam sighed, stood from the couch, and wrapped his own finger around Gabriel’s. “There, happy?”

“Very. Tell your brother I said hi,” Gabriel said, handing over his phone and disappearing into his bedroom again. Sam dialed and stepped out the front door into the almost morning for some privacy.

“Sam, everything okay?”

“Yeah, Dean. Fine. Just calling to check in.”

“Okay, you sure? This guy didn’t kidnap you and force you to call me to get rid of any suspicions?”

“Dean, I’d use our code word if he did. You know that.” They had code words for everything. Kidnapping, no toilet paper, pretend to be sick to get me out of this situation, the list was endless as were the memories attached to them.

“Yeah, I know, Sam. He treating you okay?”

“He is,” Sam said, trying to keep it simple. Dean caught on, though. He always caught on.

“There something more to that, Sam? Your tattoos match and you forgot to tell me?”

“No. At least I haven't seen his.”

“But if they did?”

“They probably don’t. He’s seen mine and hasn’t said a word.”

“But if they did. You’d be happy?” Dean asked. A bittersweet ache unfurled in Sam’s chest and he begged it to go away. He couldn’t let his mind latch on to things like that. It already had. It already built a life between them stemming until they were old like the couple they’d walked behind from the baseball field and he knew how devastating it would be when it all comes crashing down.

“Yeah,” Sam said, the truth hitting him in the chest, “I’d be happy.”

“Don’t get your hopes up Sammy. Just in case.”

“I know, Dean. Say hi to Cas for me.”

“Cas, Sammy says hi,” Dean said, voice a bit muffled.

“Ew, Dean are you in bed with him right now?”

“Sure am, Sammy.”

“And you’re talking to me why?”

“You know, I’m not real sure anymore,” Dean laughed.

“Goodbye, Dean,” Sam said.

“Bye Sam. Stay safe.”

* * *

“Smile, Sammy,” Gabriel said as a flash of light blinded him. They ended up on the roof again after he’d hung up with Dean, neither of them tired even after the sun started to climb the sky. The trees were gently swaying across the water, sending a soft rustle through the air. There was life out there and it was slowly waking with the light and Sam couldn’t believe he was here to witness it all before him.

“Why are you taking pictures, Gabriel?”

“The sunrise looks pretty,” Gabriel said.

“Then don’t you think you should take a picture of that instead?” Sam asked.

“Didn’t say you weren’t pretty too.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Fine, but you have to be in one too.”

He pulled Gabriel into the picture beside him, their foreheads touching and the lake stretching behind them for miles. He snatched Gabe’s phone from his hands once he’d took it. Gabriel’s smile was soft, his eyes glittering in the sunlight of the day. Sam’s expression mirrored Gabriel and he couldn’t help the warmth that was now a permanent fixture in Sam’s chest, being around Gabriel.

“What are you doing?” Gabriel asked, scrambling for the phone.

“Texting it to myself in case I ever get my phone fixed.”

Gabriel relaxed and sat back on his heels, waiting as Sam texted the picture to himself. When Sam, with a grin, raised the phone to snap a picture of Gabriel by himself in the light, though, Gabe lunged and sent both of them sprawling to the ground. Sam landed on the ground with an oof, the wind knocked from his lungs. Still he managed to keep the phone in his grip. He looked up to find Gabriel inches from his face, arms bracketing each side of his head, hovering with the newborn sky above him. The breath was knocked from Sam’s lungs again, but for a different reason. One more to do with beauty and less to do with impacts with the ground. He was falling, though, Sam knew that now. Falling and bracing for the impact with the metaphorical ground that came when he was falling for a someone without a matching tattoo. It would be messy. And bloody. And it was looming nearer as the week drew closer to its end.

Gabriel leaned closer and closer still until his breath ghosted just over Sam’s lips. “Hey, Sam.”

“Yeah?” Sam whispered back.

“Would you mind if I just...” He leaned closer, his lips just barely brushing Sam’s before he was suddenly gone, leaving Sam cold and empty. Sam’s heart was pounding, pounding, pounding as he sat up, shaking his head to figure out what the hell happened.

“Got it,” Gabriel said grinning from where he was sat on his knees, phone clutched in his hand. He wiggled the phone in front of Sam’s face and stuck out his tongue. The sky was no longer pink, though Sam’s cheeks were.

“Yeah,” Sam said, keeping the shakiness from his voice as best he could, “you got me alright.”

Sam retreated downstairs soon after, pulling open his laptop to distract himself as his pulse calmed down and so did he. It was silly. Dumb. He couldn’t be doing this to himself. Not when he’d be leaving soon. He pulled up google and started to type. _What to do if you fall in love with someone who isn’t your soulmate._ The cursor blinked at him, his fingers hovering over the enter button. He stared at the sentence and it scared him and that’s how he knew it was true. He erased the whole thing and shut his computer, burying his face in his hands.

* * *

They went out to lunch together after a short nap on Sam’s part. Gabriel said he wasn’t tired and stayed on the roof while Sam dozed beneath the sunlight. They wound up seated in a booth at a breakfast place a little ways into town. Gabe drove them, since it was miles from his house and neither of them felt like walking the whole way.

They sat across from each other, Sam wearing a t-shirt and jeans, his flannel and jacket left behind since the afternoon had taken a humid turn. Gabriel was telling Sam a story about his boss, Chuck, arms waving everywhere as he talked, when yelling rang out across the restaurant. Sam paid the yelling no mind, neither did Gabriel, and he kept telling his story. The room was crowded, the afternoon breakfast eaters of the world out and hungry and chattering their laughter-filled chatter through the restaurant.

But, the yelling grew louder and louder, an older man approaching their table until he was just a foot away and looming over Sam, face clouded and turning red. He was shaking as he yelled, and Sam was reminded of volcanos when they erupt, how they shake the earth just so and wipe out everything in their path.

“Hey, you hear what I said boy? Don’t come ‘round here waving that thing around.” He gestured to Sam’s wrist and kept yelling, spittle flying with each word and gathering at the corners of his mouth. “It’ll only cause trouble. Cover it up like a respectable person or get the hell out of my town.”

Sam froze, shocked. He knew soulmate tattoos hadn’t been a public thing a long time ago, but he hadn’t ever faced someone who still thought that way. So the story goes, back when Sam’s grandparents were young, soulmate tattoos were see as exposing something personal to the world, not something that was taken lightly. Like being nude in public. They covered them up much in the same way they covered their bodies, but as time went on, people had enough of hiding them. These tattoos were parts of themselves, layered on their skin, so why not show them off? Why not make it easier to find your soulmate? Why be ashamed of having something every single person had? The new generations had grown more casual about them, and until now, Sam thought the older generations had adapted to the new way of life. It seems he was wrong.

“Sir, I’m sorry, alright? I’ll cover it as soon as I get home. Now, why don’t you go back to your meal and I go back to mine?” Sam said, trying to remain as cool headed and level as possible, despite his shaking hands.

“Excuse me? How dare you talk to me like that.” The man grabbed Sam’s wrist, bony fingers tightening so hard Sam could feel the bruise forming beneath his skin, heavy and throbbing. “Cover it up now or leave.”

Sam tried to pull his wrist away, but the man held tight. “Let go of my wrist. Go back to your business since this is none of yours.”

The man started to tug at Sam’s arm, making a move to drag him to the door of the restaurant whether Sam wanted to or not. But, Gabriel, in the cheeriest voice Sam had ever heard matched with eyes so filled with thunder, started to half-yell across the booth.

“Oh, hi Garrett, nice to see you too. Now, if you’d kindly let my friend Sammy’s arm go, I’d really appreciate it. I was telling a story and I’d love to get back to it. The punchline was a kicker, I tell ya.”

“Yeah or what?” Garrett spit. Gabriel across the table let his fake smile slip into a sneer to match his eyes. Sam couldn’t help but see lightning in his face, static charged and dangerous.

“How’s the wife Garrett? You two still together?”

“Yeah why wouldn’t we be?” The man said, confusion dripping from his voice.

“Oh what was her name, Shelly? Oh wait, no. Silly me, that’s your girlfriend on the side ain't it? Oops. So hard to keep track these days. Isn’t that funny, Sam?” Gabriel asked, tilting his head. Garrett’s grip on Sam’s wrist loosened until Sam was able to pull his arm back to his side, his wrist throbbing and raw.

“How do you know about that?” he whispered, eyes darting around the room to the booths filled with people starting to take notice of the commotion. All eyes were on them, what with the man’s yelling earlier, though Sam doubted any of them could hear Gabe’s thundering whisper.

“Well, I don’t think that’s any of your business now is it? And neither is this nice meal we’re having here, so go on back to your food or I just might let your little secret slip. Lots of people in this place today, wouldn’t do to have them overhear.”

Garrett clenched his thin-fingered fists and made a move towards Sam. “Doesn’t mean he should be flashing that thing around without someone with him,” he muttered.

“Well, ain't that just the darndest thing? Here we are me and Sam, together,” Gabe reached out and rested his hand on top of Sam’s exposed one, sending electricity running up Sam’s arm, “and you just keep on interrupting our date.”

Gabe winked at Sam and Sam flipped his hand over, tangling their fingers together as his pulse kicked up. “I know, babe. The nerve of some people.”

Garrett froze, glancing between Sam and Gabe, Sam and Gabe, before stuttering and backing from the table as he tripped over his own feet.  He muttered, “Still shouldn’t have it exposed.”

“Still shouldn’t stick your nose into other people’s business,” Gabe muttered.

Garrett went back to his seat across the restaurant and Gabe left their hands tangled together on the tabletop. Sam could feel the sweat forming on his palms and itched to wipe it away before Gabriel noticed. He didn’t though, and Gabriel spent the rest of the meal fiddling with Sam’s hands and fingers on the tabletop. In case the guy walked by, Sam reassured himself despite the nerves in his hands and all the way up his arm tingling.

“Thank you,” Sam whispered.

“No problemo, Sammy. Guy was a douchebag. Let me see your wrist?”

Sam held out his other arm, wrist purpling in the imprint of a hand. Gabriel hissed when he saw it, face turning to thunder again. His fingers were gentle, though, like feathers as he brushed them across the bruises. Sam shuddered as goosebumps broke out across his skin.

“Shit, did I hurt you?” Gabriel asked, misreading Sam’s reaction.

“No, no it’s-you're fine,” Sam said, keeping his eyes down so they didn’t betray just how much he wanted Gabe’s fingers to stay, sliding against his skin.

Gabriel kept glancing over his shoulder at the guy long after the excitement had passed and the other customers went back to their meals. He stood when he noticed Garrett paying his bill. As he started to leave, walking through the restaurant, Gabriel swung around to Sam’s side of the booth, inches from him. Sam started to ask what he was doing, but then Gabe’s lips were on his, warm and insistent and Sam melted into the kiss. It was soft and sunlight and so, so, so much better than he’d imagined. Every nerve in his body felt alive, glowing, full of star stuff and the sea and sunshine. Of course he felt like sunshine with Gabe beneath his fingers. It was like living in his windowed house allowed the sun to seep beneath his skin and into his voice and fingers and lips. Everything was singing. Everything was bright. Gabe pulled away grinning and he turned his head to the door where Garrett stood, staring at them wrapped around each other. Garrett caught Gabe’s eye and whipped his head away so hard it looked like it hurt and he stormed from the building. He swung the glass door open so hard it wobbled as it hit the wall. Sam wouldn’t be surprised if there was a crack in the glass now, a mark left on the surface. Men like Garrett left cracks everywhere they went.

“Did you see his face? That was awesome,” Gabriel cheered, throwing his arms around Sam. Sam’s heart dropped. Right, Garrett. That had been the point.

“Yeah, that was amazing,” Sam breathed, crushing down his disappointment until he could deal with it later. Somewhere less public and less Gabe filled. Flowers died in an instant, but they took a while to show it. He could do that too.

Gabriel read something from Sam’s expression and his smile fell. “Sam? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Sam said, bouncing his eyes from Gabriel’s face to elsewhere in the restaurant.

“Sam?” Gabe asked, but Sam kept his eyes on the waitress as she walked through the place, dodging tables and people as she slid plates to patrons waiting. Her yellow dress was faded and spattered with stains and her skin was wrinkling around her mouth. She’d been here too long, Sam decided. Much too long. He wanted to ask her how she ended up here. How _he_ ended up here. Maybe she’d know.

“Sam,” Gabriel wrapped his fingers around his chin and turned his head, forcing Sam to meet his eyes.

“It’s nothing, finish your food,” Sam said, willing Gabe to let his chin go, to let him be a coward. To retreat.

Gabriel let his hand fall to the side, shoulders sagging, and he moved to the other side of the table, eyes on Sam the whole way. They finished their meal in silence and made their way home.

The air in the car was heavy and the space between them much smaller than Sam remembered. He kept his eyes out the window on the town he’d started to know. He would not let his disappointment show. It was his own damn fault. Falling for someone was the dumbest thing he’d ever done, no matching tattoo in sight. There was an ache in his chest. His heart was bleeding and it made it hard to breathe. In the driveway of the lighthouse, Gabe parked and sat a moment in his seat, facing forward. Sam pulled the handle to get out, to escape, and found it locked.

“Unlock the door,” Sam said.

“No,” Gabriel said, arms crossed.

“Gabe come on, unlock the door.”

“Not until you tell me what’s wrong, Sam. What did I do? Was it the kiss? Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I should have asked. Shit, I didn’t ask did I? Fuck it was just, that guy just pissed me off and you looked so fucking good in that t-shirt and so fucking sad and I’ve been wanting to kiss you since I saw you stranded in the rain but I couldn’t just kiss a stranger, you know? And now I’ve fucked it all up-”

Sam did a double take. Gabe _wanted_ to kiss him? It hadn’t just been for the guy’s reaction? Sam realized Gabe was still babbling and he stopped him with a gentle hand on Gabe’s arm. “Gabe.”

“Shit, Sam, I’m sorry, seriously, please don’t be mad. I won’t do it again, not ever again.”

“Remember that favor you owe me?” Sam whispered. Gabe frowned.

“I don’t really see how that’s relevant here, but yeah. Want me to drop you at a hotel or something?”

“Kiss me,” Sam said, closing the distance across the console before Gabriel could respond. His lips were just as soft as he remembered, warm too. Sam didn’t know what it was like to be so close to sunlight until now and it felt like lightning beneath his skin, warm and singing. Gabe’s hands drifted up to tangle in Sam’s hair tugging softly and pulling a groan from the back of his throat. Gabriel climbed over the middle console, settling warm and heavy in Sam’s lap, and he moved to mouth at Sam’s jaw, hands still tangled in his hair.

“We shouldn’t.,” he whispered against Sam’s skin.

Sam pulled back, just a little. “Why not? You don’t want to?”

“Oh god, Sam. Boy do I want to, I mean look at you all hot and tall and _kind_. What’s not to want?”

“So what’s the problem?” Sam leaned in, mouthing down Gabe’s exposed throat to his collarbone. Sam had never seen such a beautiful collarbone, all soft and pretty.

“Oh, this’ll only going to make things worse later, but fuck it.” Gabriel said before lunging again, capturing Sam’s mouth in a downright filthy kiss, hands tugging at the hem Sam’s shirt and slipping his hands beneath it to run across the skin of Sam’s stomach. Goosebumps broke out across Sam’s skin as Gabe let his fingers drift, warm and soft and wandering around his waistband of his jeans.

“We should uh, take this inside,” Gabe said between kisses. Sam nodded and fumbled to open the door. They spilled out onto the dirt road, tugging and fumbling and stealing kisses as they made it through the door and into the lighthouse. Gabriel pressed Sam against the door once he shut it behind them, pulling his shirt over his head and tossing it somewhere Sam didn’t see. He took a step back, pupils dark as his eyes trailed down Sam’s chest.

Sam, sick of waiting, met Gabe halfway, backing him into the bedroom while he evened the playing field, tugging Gabe’s shirt off and tossing it to the floor. He’d seen Gabe shirtless before, but he’d never been allowed to touch, to lick and to suck his way across the smooth skin that lay there. He was reminded of sand and the way it was so palely soft. Reminded of the way water always looked like silk from far away. Reminded of the marble statues of Gods. Those were less beautiful, though. They lacked the warmth, the red flush of skin, the life. Gabe had that, had life singing through his veins, electric and alight.

They fumbled their way out of the rest of their clothes, leaving a trail to the bedroom, and the afternoon sun lighting the bed golden. It was a throne, an altar, a place of worship, as the sun touched them and they touched each other, found each other. Found hollows between elbows and near sharp hipbones covered in soft skin, found softness at the dip of a back and the skin behind a knee. Found heartbeats beneath wrists, on the inside of thighs, inside a covered ribcage bursting. Sam didn’t memorize every inch of skin, every groan and growl, every cry of Sam’s name that slipped from Gabe’s lips into the afternoon. He didn’t, but he tried. Tried to grasp those in his fingers and hold onto them for later. Forever.

Afterwards, basking in the warmth of the setting sun and the man beside him, Sam lay, letting his eyes drift closed. Gabe’s head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. He mumbled something intelligible.

“Hmm?” Sam asked.

“‘S nothing,” Gabe said, voice rumbling against Sam’s skin.

“You know earlier, when I said I was following the North Star just because it was my tattoo?” Sam whispered. Gabriel nodded against him.

“That isn’t the whole story. Not all of it. My mom, she-” Sam frowned as Gabriel sat up abruptly and slid from the bed, cutting him off. Watched as Gabe rummaged around the floor, not looking at Sam, while he pulled on a pair of sweatpants and one of Sam’s cotton t-shirts that had managed to scatter across the house in the four days he’d been here.

“I’ve got to go to work. Sorry. Pick this up later?” Gabe said, hurriedly. Sam propped himself up on his elbow with a frown. He was cold, now. His heart cold too. There was a nagging in his stomach, acidic and angry and he tried not to let it drown him.

“Gabe?”

“Yeah?” He asked, wide eyed as his eyes finally landed on Sam. Sam could hear panic seeping through his voice and ringing through the windowed room like it was trying to escape through the glass.

“Is everything okay?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, yeah, Sammy. Everything’s fine. I just can’t be late again.”

“You sure that’s all it is?” Sam asked, bracing himself for the response. He was suddenly less sure about the turn their relationship had taken, and his investment in it. Sam had been climbing, climbing up the cliff for what felt like forever, stopping to touch the grass that grew in the cracks. But at the top, he had thrown himself off a cliff before he even checked to see if there was water to catch his fall. He was falling now and the water still hadn’t showed.

“Of course, what would be the matter?” Gabe asked, frown on his face as he paused, halfway out the door.

“I don’t know, maybe you regretted this or something?”

Gabriel was at Sam’s side in a moment, less than a breath. “Sam Winchester, don’t you dare think for one moment I regret this. Any of it.”

Sam felt relief flood him in light waves that caught his fall. “Yeah?”

Gabe kissed him firmly, bent over the bed. “Yeah, Sam. Yes.”

Sam nodded and listened as Gabriel’s footsteps echoed against the steel all the way to the top. He didn’t know what just happened or what happened next, but that wasn’t important. It would be soon, sure, but he wouldn’t let it be now. Now was the time to pretend Gabriel had a tattoo that matched Sam’s, or one at all, really. Sam hadn’t seen one on the miles of skin he’d gotten to touch and taste and feel. He hadn’t known that was possible. He’d look into it later. It was time to pretend that this was home and that was all there was to it. He’d think about everything else later. Now he just let his quiet happiness settle on his bones, and he drifted to sleep.

Gabe called Sam up, startling him from the afternoon-warm doze he’d fallen into not ten minutes after Gabe had fled. “Hey, Sam, come up here will you? Got something to show you.”

Frowning, Sam dragged himself from bed, muscles sore as he moved, and dressed quickly. He grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge and went up the stairs, nervous. He’d never been allowed up there while Gabe was working before, and he wasn’t sure what he was going to see. Surely, it would be more than him standing at a telescope to warrant this kind of unease and secrecy.

“What’s up?” Sam asked when he got to the top and handed Gabe one of the waters. Gabriel was standing with his back to Sam, hands wrapped around the railing, knuckles white. The sky wasn't dark yet but it would be within seconds, the far horizon still purpley and glimmering. He took the water from Sam and drained it within a second, bottle crinkling beneath his fingers.

“Whoa, there, slow down,” Sam said.

“I need to show you something,” Gabriel said, gasping as he crushed the water bottle now empty in his hands. “Then I'll explain. Save your questions to the end okay?”

“Questions? What, Gabe-“

“The end.”

Sam frowned but shut his mouth. Watching as Gabriel turned back towards the railing, let the bottle fall to his feet, and he fell silent. Sam waited for him to continue but receiving nothing. Only stillness and silence. He almost said something, almost thought Gabriel was joking and laughed this whole thing off and went back downstairs, but Gabriel’s look just before he turned around stopped him.  Something pleading and panicky was there in his eyes and Sam knew he wasn’t joking. Not this time.

Sam stepped forward, at Gabriel’s side against the railing. He waited as the sky darkened the rest of the way, the blackness taking its rightful place around the moon now low and creeping higher. The waves below were quiet. The water, it seemed, held its breath. Gabriel’s hands were shaking and he kept his gaze forward, locked on something in the far distance Sam couldn't see.

Gabe took a shuddering breath and held out one of his hands, palm up towards the sky just over the railing. Sam watched and he waited. Waited and watched. Gabriel’s hand was still now, so very still. Then, something bright and swirling appeared in the palm of his outstretched hand, hovering just above his skin. Sam could feel the heat coming off it in waves, thick and sharp. It should have been burning Gabriel’s skin. Hell, it was burning Sam’s and he was a few feet away. Why wasn’t it burning Gabriel’s skin? Sam watched wide-eyed as Gabriel flicked his hand up and the ball of light went sailing into the depths of the dark, dark sky. The first star of the night had taken its place and it had flown from Gabe’s hand, formed from his skin.

Sam sucked in a breath, not believing his eyes as Gabriel did it over and over, letting the stars materialize in his palm before letting them float into place beside each other in the sky. As the sky above them filled, Gabriel started to wind his arm back and chuck the stars into the farther distance, close to the place the sun had just left. Sam tracked their journey the whole way. Sweat beaded on Sam’s skin, but Gabriel didn’t seem to notice the heat. He was too close to it. Or immune to it. Sam didn’t know.

Gabriel turned to him, grew two in each palm and started to juggle them around, flying them around his head and watching them dance before catching them again. He winked at Sam, threw one behind his back, and kept them moving in a glowing arc around his body. Sam smiled and he chucked those into the sky too.

Those in place, Gabriel grew bigger ones, brighter ones, and these he placed with his tongue poking from between his lips in concentration. Each took an entire minute as he used both hands to shape them and then pick out their spot in the sky and send them soaring into place. The constellations had been formed, now finding their home for the night. He turned to Sam as one grew and grew and grew in his palm, the light reflecting from the star and illuminating Gabe’s face in sparkling, astronomically beautiful light.

“Last one,” Gabriel said, a grin on his face. Sam’s lungs ached with how thick the heat was in the air around him. He wondered why the water and the sea didn’t boil beneath these stars. Thought the sky must be so cold out there, for the stars to have to burn themselves just to stay warm. Wondered if it would light him up from inside if he swallowed one or if he’d burn out. Wondered how he could be surrounded by all this beauty, all this wonder, and still want to stare at the way the starlight lit up Gabriel’s face, the way his eyes glittered in the reflection. The way the stars did not stand a chance in comparison. The North Star drifted from Gabe’s palm and took its place among the now complete sky and Gabriel turned to Sam, looking tired but alive. His hair was mused, pieces falling into his face. His eyes were bright, like he’d placed a star in them too.

“So, questions?” Gabriel asked, his voice hoarse but cheery.

“I don’t-It’s just-whoa,” Sam said, having a hard time finding words for this.

“Okay, I’ll just give you a quick summary while you wrap your mind around this,” Gabriel said. “So, I’m a night weaver, or _the_ night weaver. Just one and that’s me. My boss’s name is Chuck, that’s true, but everyone else knows him by God. Let’s see, what else? That’s the basic gist of it. Now, class, I am open for questioning.”

“A night weaver?” Sam asked, though he wasn’t really asking. He just needed to say it for himself, let his mouth form the words in an attempt to make sure he wasn’t going insane. Maybe if he said it out loud, his brain would be able to understand what that entailed.

“The one and only,” Gabriel said, shrugging his shoulders.

“How long have you done this?” Sam asked, questions suddenly flooding his brain.

“A while now. Since I was a teenager.”

“How’d you get the...job?”

“The guy who used to do it got himself hurt, bad enough to be fatal, and one night I was blitzed out of my mind and alone, walking down some street I can’t remember. Not a good combo, Sammy, let me tell you. My parents had died a little while before and the house was too quiet to be sober in. Anyway, Chuck was waiting on my doorstep and asked if I’d like a job, something important. I said yes, not really aware of what I was agreeing to. He’d said it would let me travel so I jumped at the chance. It ended up changing everything.”

“Where’d you live before?” Sam asked.

“Doesn’t matter does it?”

“I guess not. Why here?”

“Small town, no prying eyes nearby and the digs are pretty sweet.”

“And you do this every day?”

“Sure do. Gets boring after a while.”

“And they don’t burn you?” Sam asked, the heat still warm on his skin.

“Nah, part of the perks, I guess.”

“What other perks are there?”

“Well, job’s pretty cool. I’ve got fairly solid job security, too. And, I can’t really die from anything that isn’t major. Chuck will take care of most anything, though he’s real strict about that. I’ve got rules a plenty. And the prayers are sometimes cool. Also, coolest fucking job ever. Just wish I could tell more people.”

“The prayers?” Sam asked.

“Not important. Any other questions?”

Sam thought. “Not really. How do you do it?”

Gabriel grinned. “Hard to explain. I became this through a process of trials, painful to say the least. Anyway, it’s not something you need to worry yourself with. Plus, Chuck would probably kill me if I told you.”

“So, earlier, with the thunder?”

“That was Chuck.”

“He’s okay with you telling me?”

“More or less. I get my way more often than not when I’m the only one that can do a job and it takes quite a while to train a newbie.” But there was uncertainty not masked all that well beneath his words.

Sam’s head was finally starting to accept that this was real and this was happening and not a dream he was having. It didn’t feel like a dream, and that scared him a bit. Was he just going crazy? Gabe set his hand on top of Sam’s on the railing and grinned at him and he didn’t think he was crazy.

“Whoa. I thought your job was cool before,” Sam said.

“What can I say? I’m a pretty cool guy,” Gabriel said, glancing at Sam. There was a wavering beneath his words, beneath his eyes. Like he was waiting for Sam to freak out and leave. Sam stepped forward, lifting their hands from the railing and turning Gabe’s over. He traced his fingers over Gabe’s palm, gentle, looking for signs of burnt skin, but there was nothing but smooth softness.

He pressed a kiss to Gabe’s palm anyway and looked up at the stars. “Thanks for showing me.”

“Anything for you, Sam,” Gabriel said in a whisper, and Sam felt the weight of his words settle, warm, over his chest. Like he was a star and he had floated into his rightful place in the sky.

Sam brought the blanket up from the couch and they sat against the wall, Sam staring at the stars and the man that made them and he couldn’t decide which was more beautiful. Gabriel, he decided in the end. Less distant and softer. The stars looked sharp, like they’d cut you without meaning to. Gabriel was soft edges all the way through. Gabriel let his head fall onto Sam’s shoulder and they sat together under the man-made sky.


	6. Chapter 6

Thick storm clouds appeared on the horizon, slivers of the morning sun fighting their way through to touch the life that waited below, and the sound of rumbling thunder woke Sam. Gabriel’s head was still on his shoulder, both of them still on the roof. They’d dozed up there, stealing kisses and touches beneath the stars, leaning into each other, and talking for hours. Sam wasn’t one for flings or wasting his time, but with Gabriel, it didn’t feel like that at all. Moments like these felt more real than any soulmate Sam could imagine was out there. Moments like these made him question whether he’d be going off when the week was done after all, matching tattoo or not.

He shifted and Gabriel jerked awake. He looked at the sky before grumbling. “Ugh, seriously?”

“Why, what’s wrong?”

“Chuck sent the clouds in. He knows it makes my job harder. I have to wait for them to move to put the stars behind them. Takes forever. It’ll take all night and by the time I’m done the sun will burn them away.” Gabe yawned, throwing his arms out to stretch and hitting Sam in the face on accident.

“Oh, ‘m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Sam said, laughing at his morning clumsiness. “I thought clouds were like a gas?”

“Yeah, but he does something to them so my stars can’t get through. It’s infuriating and an utter waste of time and he fucking knows it,” Gabe said, yelling the last part at the sky.

“How about I make breakfast and we just hang around today?” Sam asked.

“Sure, Sammy. Sure. You got work to do?”

“Yeah, a little, but it’s fine.”

“Okay, meet you downstairs,” Gabriel said, pausing at the railing. As he shut the door, Sam swore he could hear Gabriel talking to the sky. Whatever it was, he was met with booming thunder that shook the house and sent water outside the windows into a froth-filled frenzy. Not good, then. He wanted to listen at the door, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. If it was important, Gabe would share it. He had to trust that.

* * *

Sam spent the rest of the day writing on the couch, Gabriel moving around him. One minute he had his head in Sam's lap while yelling at the TV, some reality show on low volume flashing through the room. The next, he had his feet tucked beneath Sam, feet icy cold, and his nose buried in his book. He was uncontainable.

“Sam,” he said, now back to laying in Sam’s lap as Sam attempted to keep typing at his keyboard despite the head in his way.

“Gabriel,” Sam sighed. The angle hurt his wrists and he really needed to get something done. He’d gotten caught up in, well, Gabriel, and only had three days left to send something in that was both long enough for Kevin and actually good.

“Entertain me, I’m bored,” Gabriel whined.

“I’m writing,” Sam said.

“Please, Sam? I’m dying of boredom. Dying. Do you want to be responsible for my death, Sam? Do you?”

“I’ll say something nice at your funeral,” Sam quipped, saving his document and closing it out with a loud sigh. The puff of air rustled Gabriel’s hair and Sam let his fingers run through it too. “What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know. Tell me a story or something. Read me something you wrote. I don’t care.”

Sam thought for a moment before pulling up a short story he’d written not long ago, something that made him think of Gabriel now, of how eerily it matched their situation, and read it out loud. Gabriel grow still in his lap as he spoke, voice echoing through the room. Even the sky outside grew silent, the thunder pausing for Sam to fill the silence.

“ _Somewhere along the winding waves of whispered history, something went wrong,”_ Sam read. _“Humans, when faced with both darkness and light, pitted the two against each other. It was their eyes and the things their brains did to fill the empty spaces they couldn’t see through. Zeus always told the other Gods to pay their anger no mind, it meant nothing in the end. So the Gods listened, watched silent as the humans below found fire to ward off darkness, built weapons to attack anything of the dark, to flood the Earth in light._

_Nyx, goddess of night and all the creatures of it, took offense to the human’s fear, to their attacks on her own kind. The night did not have sharp teeth. It would not bite them when they closed their eyes any more than the day would. But they did not understand and she’d had enough. She formed the brightest things she could, sharpened their edges, and rained them down on the humans below. The light could hurt too, she screamed._

_She could only do it for a moment while the human’s terror-filled screams drifted up to her. She did not hate them, the humans. They had always lived in her world too, if only to fight it. She stopped the too-bright rain and instead let the balls of light hang in the darkness of the night as her heart broke. The humans would never love her, not like Apollo and his sunshine._

_Her attention was caught by gasps as the humans turned their faces skyward, to stare at the light dotting the sky after their fear faded. Light had found darkness in a marriage of beauty. ‘Stars’, their mouths formed around the sharp white in the navy sky, ‘stars’. So, each night, Nyx let the light cut her hands and she spread them across the sky and the humans would look up for centuries to marvel at the night just as much as the sun-lit sky of the day. From then on, the humans saw light and dark not as opposites, but as partners, coming together to make the world a place of wonder.”_

The universe froze until Sam was done. In the end, Gabriel turned to look up at Sam, speechless.

“Whoa,” he whispered.

“Yeah?” Sam asked, biting his lip. He’d written it a while ago, and he could see things he wanted to rewrite and fix.

“I thought I was good at _my_ job,” Gabe said.

Sam rolled his eyes. “Shut up, your job is so much cooler.”

“Maybe, but I can’t do that with words. And I have words. You don’t have stars to try. Knowing you, you’d be amazing at that too and put me out of a job.”

Sam shook his head, laughing. “Thanks, Gabe.”

“You’re welcome, Sammy. Thanks for sharing. Now, come down here and give me a kiss before I go to work.”

Sam obliged, and Gabriel went scampering up the stairs and onto the roof above. Sam fell asleep, there on the couch, and didn’t wake up until Gabriel came back down, stomps ringing against the stairs before he spotted Sam and quieted his steps.

“Gabe?” Sam asked, squinty and bogged down.

“Sorry, Sam. I didn’t know you were sleeping or I woulda tried to be quieter.”

“It’s fine. You’re later than usual.”

“It was the fucking clouds. What an asshole,” he yelled. The sky yelled back and it had Gabriel beat in volume.

“What can I do to make it better?” Sam asked, sitting up.

“You can come have really loud sex with me and gross the crap outta the big guy upstairs?”

Sam laughed but let Gabriel tug him into the bedroom and push him onto his back on the bed. And they were loud, but so was the thunder and Sam couldn't tell who won the noise contest then. Lying there afterwards with Gabriel’s head on his chest, he knew one thing. He’d won something. Had to have to get so lucky.

* * *

“Sam?” Gabriel whispered, waking him. Sam opened his eyes to find Gabriel sitting on the edge of the bed, his back to Sam, the morning sun shooting through the windows of the bedroom.

“Gabe?” Sam grumbled as he pulled the covers over his head to block the light out. “Come back to bed.”

“Sam, I have to tell you something.”

Dread set in Sam’s gut when he heard Gabriel’s tone. Tons weighed down his words; gravity had doubled and dragged them to the ground. Sam sat up, sleep sliding from his mind in a moment. “What?”

“You know those prayers I mentioned earlier?”

“Yeah?”

“Being a night weaver, I hear everyone who prays to the stars. To night. It’s usually thieves and criminals and scum. People like Garrett at the restaurant. People who hide in the darkness, always want it to come faster.”

“So that’s how you knew he was cheating?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, he always wished for night to come. But sometimes it’s not bad people, Sam. Sometimes, it’s people who want to sleep away their pain or their grief. People who like the night-time or people who are just plain tired.”

“Yeah, so? That sounds pretty cool,” Sam said.

“No, you don’t get it. I hear everything in their prayers, hear their life story and who they are.”

“Gabe, I still don’t-”

“Sometimes,” Gabe interrupted. “Sometimes it’s young boys, trying to sleep away their grief. I know you Sam. You’ve been praying to me since you were a little boy, in your bedroom alone. I was just a teenager back then, a newbie, but you’ve been popping up in the chorus of prayers for years. I have heard your story, your voice, a thousand times over.”

Sam felt the breath rush from his body and a coldness set in. He remembered all too well the days after his mother died, and how the sunlight was too bright to live beside anymore. Remembered just how many times he prayed for the night so he could escape into his dreams. She was always there, waiting for him, when he fell asleep, with her warm smiles and soft laughter.

“So what are you saying? You lead me here? You knew I was following the North Star, I prayed about it at least dozen times.”

Gabriel was silent and still, same position he’d been in when Sam woke with his back to Sam and his elbows on his knees. He didn’t respond.

“So what was this? Some sort of pity thing? Lure the broken man here and what, break him some more?” Sam ground out. He felt so very exposed in the room, the walls closing in on him.

“No, I didn’t-”

“But you knew I was following it, Gabe. I prayed the North Star would guide me to home. Guide me to my soulmate. I prayed to _you_ to lead me to my soulmate and somehow, in the midst of the storm, I ended up here on your doorstep?”

“I mean I knew you were nearby, but I was just leading you to somewhere safe. I had to keep you safe.”

“Why?” Sam asked, trying to understand the reason Gabe had lead him here, brought him here.

Gabriel was silent.

“Please, Gabriel. I’m trying to understand. Tell me why.”

“There’s nothing I can say here to make this better.”

“So you kept me from my soulmate, stranded me here, _lied_ to me and you won’t tell me why.”

“You should go.” And he was probably right, Sam should go. Storm out of there and never look back. He let the words building in his mind spill out first, though.

“You know everything about me, Gabriel. I put myself into every prayer, every word. You should have told me. I thought I could be someone new here, someone I liked here. But, you’ve known the whole time. You kept me from my soulmate so long I started to think you _were_ mine.”

“Sam-” Gabriel’s voice shattered and fell to the floor and Sam listened to it break. Listened to the pieces settle.

Sam stood, grabbing his shirt and a pair of shoes he wasn’t entirely sure were his and what was left in his duffel bag, and he left. Walked out the door while something bubbled, angry and hot, in his stomach. He wanted to punch something. Wanted to cry. Gabriel had known everything and let Sam make a fool of himself. Sam’s words, Sam’s memories, had meant nothing to someone who already knew them. He felt vulnerable and exposed and he wanted to spit the feeling from his mouth and never taste it again.

He walked towards town, blindly stumbling along in his angry haze, trying to escape the man that knew everything. The man who kept him from his soulmate knowingly. Who didn’t say a word. He looked up to see the mechanic’s shop drawing near, though he couldn’t quite remember the walk it took to get there. The payphone was around the back and he found it with ease, glad to have spotted it before.

Sam called Dean from the payphone, shaking as he waited for Dean to answer. He did and Sam fell silent, not knowing where to start.

“Dean?” He asked, voice shaky and soft.

“What happened, Sammy? What’s wrong? Sam?”

“Can you come get me?”

“‘Course. Where are you?”

Sam gave him his location as best he could and Dean hung up without asking any questions. Sam had never been more grateful.

He knew it would be at least 6 hours until Dean showed up, so he found the city’s library and tried to lose himself in the pages of a book. It didn’t work, though. After every sentence, Gabriel’s voice or his face or something he said would run through Sam’s head and he’d get angry all over again. Why hadn’t he just _told_ Sam? They could’ve been having a nice morning together, wrapped around each other in bed or eating breakfast. It wasn’t fair to make Sam feel like they were on equal ground when he knew so much. It tainted everything. Like Gabriel had just done it to pity Sam. Plus, he kept him from his soulmate. He knew Sam was following the North Star and it just happened to lead him to Gabriel’s? What Sam had thought was fate, he now knew was meddling of another kind. His heart had run away with his mind and somewhere out there, his soulmate was waiting and Gabe let it all happen, made it all happen.

Sam had been wrong. When he lept from the cliff, there had been no water to catch him, but by the time he hit the ground he had tricked himself into thinking there was. He had not been bracing for impact, instead welcoming his landing with arms outstretched. But now he was broken and it was his fault as much as it was the cliff’s.

He laid his head down on the wooden table in the back of the library and let his thoughts wash over him, crash into him. There would be no escaping them and reading wasn’t going to happen, nor was writing. Sam accepted that and just let it all fall down on him. What was the point in fighting, he’d drown anyway. This way was a lot less effort and right now, he didn’t feel like fighting. He let it drown him, all the memories and the anger and the vulnerable feeling he was left with, a bitter taste in his mouth and acid rising in his throat. Sam read somewhere that the first thing to shut down when someone was angry was their sense of time. Before he knew it the hours had left an imprint of the table on his forehead and he couldn’t remember any of the minutes it took to get there.

He’d told Dean he’d meet him near the turn off of the highway and when the clock ticked close, he called Dean to see how much longer he’d be. Dean told him he’d be a few minutes and Sam sat on the side of the road in the dirt and waited to spot his brother’s car, afternoon sun sweltering.

It appeared, inching down the street as Dean scanned the area. Sam stood and waved from the side and Dean pulled to a stop in front of him. Sam climbed in without a word, tossing his half-full duffel bag into the backseat and shutting the door behind him.

Dean took off, flipping around and getting back on the highway towards home. He didn’t ask any questions, but Sam knew he owed him an explanation. He didn’t know where to start.

“Thanks for coming to get me,” he said, figuring he’d start somewhere familiar. A place where he knew the script and the words and wasn’t grasping at straws to explain things he wasn’t so sure about himself.

“Sure thing, Sammy. When’s your car done?”

“Few days. I left a note for the mechanic asking him to keep an eye on it until I go back just before you got me.”

“And he’s cool with it?”

“Yeah,” Sam said. Hopefully that was true. He hadn’t waited around to actually ask him, just left the note on the door and kept walking, wanting to put as much distance between him and the lighthouse as possible.

“Want to talk about it?” Dean asked.

“Not really,” Sam said, looking out the window.

“Told ya to be careful, Sammy,” Dean said softly.

“I thought I was, but...” He shrugged and didn’t elaborate. It was too fresh, there in the forefront of his mind, to talk about. Drowning men did not speak and so Sam did not. Dean nodded. He drove them home, using his music to fill the silence, as the sun set and plunged them into darkness.

“Whoa, look at the sky, Sammy.”

Sam tensed, Dean’s voice coming across...worried? And he knew he shouldn’t, but he looked through the car’s windshield to find the dark blue glitteringly bright but only half-full, gaps where stars and constellations should have been. It was jarring. Sam stared into the patches of darkness, and felt a pang of worry for Gabriel despite it all. Dark black clouds loomed in the horizon, a threat to the night weaver broken in his home. Sam glanced in the rearview mirror at the town disappearing from sight and he, for just a moment, wanted to tell Dean to turn around.

“What’s up Sammy?” Dean asked, catching Sam’s movement.

“Nothing, never mind,” Sam said, shutting his mouth and falling silent again.

They arrived home and Sam got out of the car, legs wobbly, and he followed Dean into the bunker.

“So you need some grub?” Dean asked. Sam shook his head, going straight to his room and shutting the door behind him. He flopped onto his bed, but the rumbling from the clouds above grew louder and louder and louder until he let out a groan of frustration and grabbed a t-shirt from his floor, shoving it over the small window above his bed that let the sky in. It would provide a buffer, at least. Gabriel got to push his grief out into the sky, and Sam couldn’t handle seeing it. It was too much like what he wanted to do, but he didn’t have the power to. It was too much like exactly what he was feeling and it wasn’t fair Gabe got to remind him of that.  He fell onto his bed again, in the complete darkness, and prayed for sleep to come before he could stop himself. Gabriel heard him, he knew, and he cursed himself for his lapse in judgement. It was so easy to pray to the night, to the stars and their comfort when they couldn’t hear you. But, now Sam knew the truth. The stars had ears and they were listening.

He lay awake, staring at the ceiling, as the bunker fell silent and Dean fell asleep across the hall. Hours passed, his eyes burned, and sleep did not pardon him from his suffering still. It was unbearable and he escaped his dark cast prison as soon as he heard Dean leave for work just before six. The sun would soon emerge and Sam was glad for it. It would fill the spotted sky and take away the eerie reminder of what he’d lost.

* * *

Across the lands, far away, the man who put the stars in the sky longed for the burning of the sun, and took another swig from his bottle. He would forget the emptiness of his lighthouse somehow. There was a shelf in his chest where his heart sat, and now it lay shattered at his feet. He had not the will to pick up the pieces, knowing he’d lose some when he finally did. Those would always belong to Sam, the pieces and the holes in his heart. Outside his window, the trees cried their leaves as the birds who had nested in them fled the approaching winter.


	7. Chapter 7

Dean came home with grease stains on his face and Sam’s phone, now fixed, in his hand. He handed it to Sam without a word, going to shower the grime from his skin.

He came back out, hair dripping, to find Sam crouched over his newly awakened phone, sitting against the wall of the hallway with a glossy and broken look in his eyes.

“Hey, it cool if Cas comes over-” He asked before looking up. When he noticed Sam’s position, he stepped forward from the hallway. “Sam? What’s wrong?”

Sam blinked, slowly, up at Dean, eyes bleary and a fog over his brain. He could not think, there was nothing left inside. Dean pried the phone from Sam’s fingers, finding the picture of Gabe and Sam on the rooftop saved as his wallpaper.

Sam let Dean walk him to his room and to his bed, drawing back the untouched covers for Sam to fall into, his exhaustion too great to fight any longer. He fell into blissful blankness, but woke and felt the anger resurge. That was Gabe’s doing, his empty dreams. He had no doubt it was.

_You bastard. Let me have the nightmares. Let me grieve. It is my pain to feel. Do not take that from me too._ He screamed to the god of the sky. When sleep came, and again it was soft nothingness, he couldn’t help but feel a bit relieved too.

* * *

Cas, as it turned out, was perfect company for Sam. He read quietly in the armchair by lamplight, not caring if Sam stared blankly at the ceiling for hours in the half dark of the room. Sometimes, he’d read softly, just barely a whisper into the room, and Sam liked it when he did. The illusion of company. He couldn’t handle the real thing right now. Cas didn’t care if he responded or reacted at all, he just read or sometimes wrote, pen-scratching paper. Dean said he wrote to his brother a lot, though he never did get a response.

“Why do you keep writing, Cas?” Sam asked once the grief had softened in the days of nothing, sprawled on the couch in the dark. His anger he had held in his chest, but his sadness he was learning lived in his throat, in choked breath, in his fingertips that remembered what Gabe felt like and now could touch no longer. Cas glanced up from his paper and paused a moment before answering.

“Because he’s my brother and I love him.”

“And why doesn’t he respond?”

“He doesn’t think he deserves love.”

“Does anyone deserve love?” Sam asked, bitterness seeping into his voice.

Cas just shrugged. “It doesn’t matter if they deserve it. They need it. Everyone needs it.”

“To live?” Sam asked, skeptical.

“To be human. To feel alive. Yeah, Sam, to live.”

Sam turned away, thoughts of Gabriel, alone in his lighthouse without pictures, running through his mind. He was still angry, but sometimes he wasn’t sure what for anymore.

* * *

Dean sat on the couch, arm around Cas as they watched some sitcom filled with studio laughter. Sam had decided it was time to explain himself, if only a little. For Dean and his kindness and Cas for his. They deserved something in return. He’d showered and thrown on clothes that weren’t stained and gross, and had come to the living room to spill his guts and to bleed for everyone to see.

Cas noticed him first, standing in the doorway and fidgeting with the bottom of his cotton shirt. He didn’t say a word, but instead Cas grabbed the remote and clicked off the TV.

“Cas, what gives?” Dean said. Cas nudged him and he turned his head towards the hallway. “Oh, Sam. What’s up?”

“I think,” Sam stared, stepping forward, “I think I owe you a bit of an explanation.”

“Sit, Sam,” Cas said in his calm voice and Sam sat. Dean and Cas untangled themselves and sat up too, waiting for Sam to continue.

“Uh, where to start? I guess with the beginning,” Sam started. “My car broke down, in that storm, and I stumbled upon this guy’s house. He was the only one in town to welcome me into his home despite the lateness of the hour, the storm outside, and my being a stranger. He fed me, washed my clothes, let me sleep in his bed. He was kind, is what I’m trying to say. And I thought that was going to be it. I went to the mechanic and got my car towed, found out it would be a week or more, and started my walk to the hotel on the other side of town. But, the guy showed up and let me stay at his place and, god it sounds stupid, but it was just so calming there. He was so calming. I slept through the night, Dean. My hands stopped shaking. I wrote, I mean, it’s been ages since I could write and there I could with ease. I thought maybe-”

“He was your soulmate,” Cas finished quietly.

“I only knew him a week,” Sam said.

“Sometimes it only takes a night. An hour. A minute. ‘s all it took for me,” Dean said, hand squeezing Cas’s. “So what happened?”

“It’s a long story, but he kept secrets from me. Things he knew the whole time and didn’t say a word. Let me fall for him without giving me the whole story.”

“But he did tell you, in the end?” Cas asked.

“Well, yeah. But not until the end.”

“Sounds like he grew too fond to lose you,” Cas said.

“Then why’d he say anything at all?” Sam asked. They could’ve gone on in blissful ignorance forever. Sam would’ve stayed forever, he knew that now.

“Guilt, I imagine. And the hope you’d forgive him.”

“Listen, Sam,” Dean cut in. “You’ve got two options here. Either you get over it and move on, or you go back and forgive him. Simple as that.”

“But, it isn’t really that simple is it?” Sam asked.

“Nothing ever is. It’s your choice, Sammy. Decide for yourself what you want. We’ll be there either way,” Dean patted Sam’s shoulder as he walked by, pulling Cas by the hand down the hallway and into their bedroom.

* * *

Sam’s deadline for Scribe came and went and he found himself not caring much. He couldn’t focus on writing now. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to be a writer after all. All he could do was write about the way stars fell and he didn’t think anyone wanted to read that. Kevin expressed his apologies and Sam did the same, knowing full well it was his fault their deal fell into nothing.

Sam started to apply for part-time jobs in the area before remembering his car was still two states over with Alfie. It had been a few weeks since he left, winter creeping closer, and he decided it was time to go get it.

The sky had become perpetual cloud cover since that night of patchwork stars, though no rain fell from them. The weathermen and citizens of the Earth alike were baffled. Panic broke out, things about the apocalypse and the end of times ran through whispers and screams. Canned food disappeared from the shelves at the store, jugs of water too. But, Sam knew what the real cause was and he tried to ignore all the muttering about it.

The three of them, Sam, Dean, and Cas piled into the Impala to go get Sam’s car the next weekend, Dean and Cas both cashing in sick days at work and hitting the road early in the morning. They made good time and Sam grew anxious, nerves eating holes in his stomach, as they neared. What if he ran into Gabriel? What if he didn’t? There were too many things he wasn’t sure about, and too many he was too sure about and he couldn’t figure out which side would win over.

Cas looked out the window, turning to Dean just before they turned off the highway. “My brother lives around here.”

“Yeah?” Dean asked, glancing at Cas.

“Yeah, in a lighthouse on the edge of a lake.”

Sam’s heart stopped. The world stopped. “What’s your brother’s name, Cas?” Sam asked quietly.

“Gabriel, why?” Suddenly the conversation he’d had with Cas came surging forward, things about deserving love ringing in his ears. “Sam?”

“Cas, your brother got a soulmate?” Dean asked, catching onto what was happening by Sam’s stiffness he noticed in the rearview mirror.

“Not yet. He wears a patch over his tattoo, though. Says he doesn’t deserve it or something. Disappeared not long after our parents died in a car accident on their way to pick him up from school.”

“Do you, by any chance, know what his tattoo is?”

“Dean, I don’t understand how that’s relevant,” Cas said, frowning.

“Cas, please. His tattoo?”

“A star. The North Star, I think. Between his shoulder blades.”

Dean froze before slowly turning his head to the backseat where Sam sat in utter disbelief. He’d been right. He’d been right all along. Gabriel was his soulmate, that asshole. The clouds rumbled above, Earth shaking, and Sam felt panic set in. Gabriel’s story about The Line was coming true and Chuck was on his way to dole out punishment if Sam didn’t get there in time. And he _had_ to get there in time. He couldn’t let Gabriel’s memories of him disappear, couldn’t let Gabriel be left with the emptiness he thought he deserved. Not when he’d been so bright, shining, and kind. Sam stared at the sky and prayed as loudly as he could, screaming inside his head. _I’m coming home, I’m coming home, I’m coming home._

Sam directed Dean to Gabe’s house and as the Impala’s tires crunched over the dirt road, he was the weirdest mix of nerves and calmness he’d ever been. He knew this was right, this was home, but what if Gabe wouldn’t let him in? What if Gabe had already lost his memories? Sam didn’t want to think about meeting Gabe and only getting empty eyes in return. He couldn’t. It would break him.

“We’ll wait here,” Dean said shooting Sam a reassuring smile. Sam nodded and climbed from the backseat, stretching his legs as he walked around the building to the door. He knocked, three raps, and waited. There was nothing. No sounds coming from the other side of the door. Just the water below and the thunder rumbling above and the anger in them both. He knocked again and was met with silence still. Was he ignoring Sam? Was he not home? Sam pulled at the door and it did not budge beneath his hands. He trudged back to the car.

“No answer,” Sam said, getting back in.

“Alright, let’s go get your car and we can come back. He probably just went to the store.”

Sam tried not to get too disappointed, but the fear and uncertainty came flooding in. What if he lost his soulmate before he ever really had him? He’d be doomed to a life like his father, restless and broken forever.

* * *

Sam swung open the glass door to Alfie’s and found him standing behind the counter alone. From the garage, soft music floated in and echoed through the room. Sam caught his breath.

“Sam! Hey, long time no see. Got your note and she’s ready for you whenever.”

“Thank you so much Alfie. What do I owe you?”

“Oh uh, nothing. And I’m supposed to give you this.” Alfie held out a sealed envelope, unmarked and average. Sam’s heart kicked just once, though, knowing only one other person knew him in this town, only one person knew he’d come here to get his car. Gabriel. Had to be.

He tore it open without hesitation and pulled out the paper inside. It was the crumpled remains of Sam’s letter after his first night, the back scribble-covered and crinkling beneath his fingers.

_Dear Sam,_

_There are a few things you need to know before you go back on your way, things I want you to know. Honestly, this is more for me than you, alright? Things I need to say before I forget._

_You prayed for the North Star to lead you to your soulmate and I heard you and I let it do so. I did not want to, but I’ve never been able to ignore your prayers. Not yours Sam. Never yours. Chuck used to get so mad when I’d shorten days for you, but I did it anyway, every time you asked._

_Thing is, Sam, I don’t get a lot of prayers from people like you. It’s always the lowest of the low. The rapists and murderers who cloak themselves in the night to steal and to hurt and to hide. I thought, maybe if I met you, it would make having to listen to that, all of it, easier to listen to each night. It was growing unbearable, hearing all of them and their darkness. But, your voice Sam, you have always been so bright and so loud and so right. You’re a good soul, Sam, I can hear it. I just thought seeing you, alive and healthy, just once would make everything okay. And then I’d let you leave._

_But, you came here and you stayed the night and my world was shattering around me. I can’t say I had fallen in love, but it was a close thing. There was a warning in the sky, rules I had to follow, and I forgot it all in a moment. You left and that was going to be it. You and I would pass each other by forever and that would be how it is. I can’t be someone’s soulmate, Sam. I don’t have the right parts for it. My heart’s too small, my need too large, my life too full of dark for someone like you. Even the stars wanted to keep me from you, a form of protection for you, knowing this would not work. So, I let you go. And then you were there by the road, heavy and alone, and I was reminded of you as a child just praying not to be exactly that. I couldn’t let you be alone and stranded again. So, I brought you back and let you grow roots and plant yourself in my life and I knew so much about you, knew just how much sadness and loneliness and pain you hid behind those smiles._

_I should have told you. I know. But I didn’t want either of us to lose the stars. For a while, they were all I had when my parents died. That’s how Chuck found me, screaming at the sky. He offered me a job of darkness and I took it, built a castle from my loneliness and relished in the darkness of the terrible people who prayed to me. They were my kind, I thought. Still do. Now you have lost the stars and now they are all I have and neither of us are happy, I suppose. I am sorry for that. I am sorry for a lot, now. I’ve never apologized before. Never needed to.  It feels weird, Sam. Sad weird._

_I want you to know that I won’t listen to your prayers anymore. I asked Chuck to turn yours off after you called me a bastard that night I kept the nightmares from filling your dreams. You needed sleep and I will not apologize for that. Just know the stars will be there to listen again and I will not._

_I am sorry you’re fated to a man like me Sam, really I am. Find happiness in someone else. You deserve it. This is me, hereby removing our soulmate status all right? I know it doesn’t work that way, stop rolling your eyes. Humor me. Tell yourself it does work this way. And move on. I will forget the bright pieces of you soon, might have already by the time you read this. I know it is not fair, to either of us, but this too kills me. Maybe I’ll find relief afterwards. You will too._

_Love,_

_Gabriel, your soulmate no longer._

Sam felt his heart shattering with Gabriel’s words. With the way he valued himself so little. With the way he thought Sam deserved something better than himself. He didn’t know he was all Sam wanted. God dammit they deserved love and they deserved each other and Sam would die before he moved on.

He stormed back out of the garage while Alfie called behind him, and he started his half-jog to Gabriel’s door. He would get in, would get to the top of the lighthouse where he knew Gabe would be hiding, and he would make him put the stars out before Chuck erased everything. Hell, he’d put the stars out himself if he had to. He’d tear the lake from the ground and drink it all if it would help.

The boy on the cliff was now a man, now healed as best as he could be. He had grown just as tall as the cliff he stood on and still he had climbed his way all the way back up. The sting from impact had disappeared into nothing, leaving a red mark on his chest and a few healing bones but little else. He took a deep breath at the top, knelt and let his fingers run through the grass that grew there, and jumped again. He had realized something, after his first fall. It was never about him and the water. It had always been him and the cliff. The cliff let him fly and the cliff got to watch him, to feel feet on its face, to not be alone any longer. This jump, though he was taller now, felt much farther and still he lept. This time there would be water, and Gabe would put it there.

At the door, he pounded on the wood until his fist split open and blood started to seep over his hand, smearing dark against the faded red paint and still Gabriel didn’t come down. He resolved to yelling up at the sky, at the top where Gabriel was perched.

“Hey you asshole let me in! I’m here and I’m not going anywhere so let me in!”

He screamed himself hoarse, threats, pleas, more threats. His words were not varied, but they were loud. The birds across the lake squawked at the interruption in their singing.

“Come on, Gabe! Let me in! Let me come home!”

Still Gabriel did not let him in. Sam slid down the side of the lighthouse and kept yelling into the air as his voice carried over the lake and touched the sun.

“Please,” Sam whispered, the sound softly echoing. “Please.”

He let his head fall into his hands. He had lost his home before he had known it was his. And it hurt, an ache in his heart. How could he go on? How could he live without the stars? He couldn’t, was the answer. He couldn’t.

The door creaked open and Sam sprang from the dirt. Gabriel stood in the doorway, facial hair stubbing his face and looking like he hadn't slept in weeks, nor showered. He looked beautiful, the most beautiful Sam had ever seen him because Sam didn’t think he’d get to again.

“Gabriel?” Sam breathed, waiting for something to let him know Gabe had not forgotten him. So far he’d received a blank stare and fear spiked through his chest.

“You shouldn't be here,” he said, voice flat. The thunder growled overhead and somewhere in town, a car alarm was startled into a scream.

“Yes I should. This is home. You are my home. The North Star brought me home.”

“North Star isn’t out.”

“No, but you are. You’re out here and that has to count for something.”

“Go away, Sam. This is no life for you.”

“This is the only life for me.”

Gabriel was shaking his head but it looked like all smoke and no flame. He had no fight left and Sam knew this was his chance. It had to be.

Sam stepped towards Gabe “Come on, please. It’s me. Let me in.”

They stood, staring at each other until Gabriel seemed to deflate before his eyes. His shoulders sank in on themselves, his back hunching over his body. There was a whisper then. “Sam.”

Sam’s heart cried out for him, sharp and stuttering. He closed the distance between them, didn’t hesitate before kissing Gabriel, soft and insistent. Beneath the doorway, Gabe froze against him, but Sam just tangled his hands in Gabriel’s hair and didn’t let go, trying so desperately to push all of his feelings into the kiss and the air and the prayers he was sending to the Earth and God and whoever would listen. It would get through somehow. It had to get through somehow.  How perfect this was and how right it felt. Gabriel, finally, softened against him, and then his hands were running down Sam’s back and Sam sighed with relief. He had found his home, and his home had found him back. There was a warmth in his heart, and a calmness.

Sam pulled away, content just to be here and now with Gabriel inches from him. A miracle, both this moment and this man beneath his fingers.

“What gives? Bring those lips back Winchester or I’ll kick your ass,” Gabriel grumbled.

“Gabe.”

“I’m serious, Sammy. Hell hath no fury like mine.”

“Gabe.”

“Sam.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Gabe sighed. “Didn’t think you deserved a life like this. Still don’t.”

“But?”

“But I love you and if this is your choice then I will let you choose it with occasional complaining.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything else.” Sam smiled and buried his face in the soft skin of Gabe’s neck. He was still sunshine, so soft and so close. He was home.

Thunder rattled the ground from above and Sam lifted his head to find Gabriel staring at the sky wide-eyed. Sam had heard his heartbeat kick up, knew they were running out of time.

Gabriel tugged him inside by the hand, bounded up the stairs with Sam hot on his heels. Outside the air was thick with something heavy on Sam’s chest, static filled and tasting faintly of blood. A warning. The sun was setting and so it was time. At the railing, Gabriel let stars fill both his palms, frantically tossing them into the sky. Gone was the precision, the concentration, the playfulness. He tossed them, some of them half formed, into the darkening sky. He had to. They were out of time. The sky needed to be filled and Chuck had grown thunderously impatient for it to be so. So Gabriel threw star after star while Sam hovered nearby, the heat burning his skin, as he held his breath and waited for the thunder to die down from the window shattering volume it had hit.

“I haven’t been doing it…” Gabriel whispered, more to himself than Sam. “Wanted him to take my memories.”

Sam stepped up, placing his hand on Gabe’s shoulder just to remind him he was here. It seemed to stretch forever, this moment while the thunder shook the world and the sky filled with stars for the first time in weeks. Across the night-covered world, the people sighed their relief at seeing the sky put back together, thoughts of the end of the world laughed away into nothing. They pulled their covers over their heads, the stars too bright now they’d grown used to a partially filled, perpetually clouded sky and they went to sleep with ease, their bodies finally settled from the unease of a sky half filled.

Gabe stopped forming stars in his palm, but there were still thin clouds and still the deep rumbling. His eyes were cast upwards as he mumbled. “I don’t understand, that's all of ‘em.”

“We’re too late?” Sam’s voice cracked, but thunder drowned out the ending. Somewhere nearby, a window shattered and rained glittering glass down onto the street below.

“But I don’t-” Gabriel stopped with a gasp. “Oh. Oh shit.”

He was gone before Sam could follow, through the doorway and down the staircase, leaving him alone as he stared into the darkness.

“Please,” Sam whispered towards the sky. “Please don’t take him away. He’s my-he’s home. I won't say he's my everything, but he's a lot and that has to count for something.”

Sam hadn't ever heard the laughter of a storm cloud, nor the laughter of a God he wasn't sure was real, but he thought the rumbling above was it. There was not malice, no shattered glass or car alarms. Just a soft rumble against the waves of the lake and Sam’s bones vibrating in the way loud music feels in the middle of the night as wheels carry you home. Sam opened his mouth to say more, plead more, offer more, but then Gabe was through the door with something glinting clasped in his hands.

Sam watched as he yanked open the lid of a jar, inside it two stars glowing dull and almost dead. Suffocating. Like fireflies trapped behind glass without holes to let them breathe. Gabe turned the jar over once he’d tossed the lid behind him and the stars fell to the floor along with the petals of long dead purple flowers and a glossy photograph of something Sam couldn’t see.

As Gabriel scooped the stars into the palm of his hand, cupping his hands around them and closing his eyes to nurse them back to strength, Sam knelt to the ground by his feet where the petals lay. Purple. They were purple. Like the flowers Sam had plucked from the riverbank a month ago. He picked up the glossy photograph and in the blinks of light from the fixture behind him, he made out the image. The two of them together, on the very same rooftop. The picture was worn thin, like fingers had smoothed across the surface a thousand times over. Also scattered along the ground were crumpled pieces of paper and Sam picked one at random, unfolding it the best he could.

_Dear Sam,_

_I’m sorry but I love you._

He flipped over the scrap of paper, but tat was all that was there. Curious, he picked up another.

_Dear Sam,_

_The stars don’t feel warm anymore. I guess they’ve gone cold, burning themselves into nothing out there on their own._

And another.

_Dear Sam,_

_I will miss you, but sometimes I find myself asking Chuck to come faster. I took The Line constellation out of the sky, I don’t need the warning any longer. I love the sky but I forget it is not my home sometimes._

That one ended there. Sam looked up, to find Gabriel sending the two stars that made the missing constellation back into the sky, gently cupped in his hands and glowing much brighter than before. So bright, Sam saw spots in his vision when he looked away. So bright, Gabe looked pale and devoid of sunlight in the reflection. He’d always thought stars were bright, but he noticed now they lacked the yellow of the sun. They were coldly bright and their distance made sense now. It was chilling to see them up close. They sailed into their place in the sky and Sam held his breath, still clutching the picture of them and the letters of grief Gabe hadn’t meant to send.

He held his breath until he could not any longer and imagined the clouds moving off into the distance. It had gone silent, the pair of them, the clouds, the water. The world was waiting for the lover’s fate to be decided, so they would not be trapped in the unknown future that sprawled ahead. If it were decided, either way, they could go on, a world of certainty and solidity. The world watched as the boy from the cliff soared his way to the ground, wondering if the lake would be filled with water or if the boy would crash again, have to drag himself back to the muddy shore and stare up at the cliff again.

The thunder faded to nothing, the clouds inching their way over the moon and across the lake to be forgotten. Sam’s heart jumped in his chest and he found Gabriel already looking down at him where he crouched, a slow smile spreading across his face. He held out his hand, pulled Sam into a kiss as soon as he stood, soft and gentle beneath the stars who had found their home again. They danced, the stars, streaking across the sky into something of a shower of light, as the night weaver and his soulmate let themselves breathe each other in. They caught Sam’s attention and he watched them dance out everything Gabe was feeling there in the sky, each light trail fading into another, then another. A rainfall of stars, though they never hit the ground. With each one, Sam let himself sigh into Gabe, sigh into just how perfectly they fit together, sigh because he had found home again.

A car horn blared and Sam jumped. “Oh right, uh Gabe?”

“Hmm?” Gabe mumbled against the skin of Sam’s neck.

“Your brother’s here. And so is mine.”

“We’ll see ‘em tomorrow,” Gabe protested as Sam started to pull away.

“Gabe, they’re waiting in the car.”

He grumbled but let Sam pull away and lead him downstairs by their linked hands. Outside, Dean and Cas lay on the hood of the Impala, staring at the sky. As Sam and Gabe emerged from the doorway, they sat up, their feet dangling over the edge and brushing the dirt. Their hands were tangled too.

“Hey, you never let me lay on the hood like that,” Sam said as they approached.

Dean shrugged, looking to Cas with a smile like the lake, soft and gentle. “You aren’t him. Plus, the sky was fucking cool tonight. Some sort of meteor shower or somethin’.”

“Gabe?” Cas said softly.

“Cassie, good to see ya little bro,” Gabe said, though he hung back behind Sam.

Cas slid from the car’s hood, feet hitting the dirt softly.

“It’s good to see you,” Cas said. Gabe threw his arms around Cas, tight and squeezing. Cas let his own arms rest gently on his brother’s back.

“I got your letters Cas. Sorry I didn’t respond. Never been much good with words, not like Sammy here.”

“It’s okay,” Cas smiled. “I’m glad they found you.”

“So, you’re Sammy’s big brother?” Gabe turned to Dean when they broke apart.

Dean nodded and stuck out his hand. “Good to meet ya.”

Gabriel shook Dean’s hand and looked to Sam, eyes dancing. “Looks like we’ve balanced it out.”

“Balanced what out?” Dean asked.

“Well, you’re fucking my brother and I’m fucking yours. That, my friend, is balance at its finest.”

Dean sputtered and Gabriel came away laughing and he looked so damn good, the smile bringing out the dimples in his cheeks, that Sam couldn’t even be mad. Instead, he felt a smile slid across his own face as he watched Gabe laugh up at his stars.

The four of them got dinner at the diner down the road, Gabe and Cas playing catch up on the lives they missed while they were apart. A lot had happened in the decade they hadn’t seen each other. Sam folded the picture and the letters and put them in his pocket, running his hands over them every few minutes. It felt surreal now they were together again. Surreal to have both lost and found his soulmate. Gabe sat too close, played with Sam’s hand under the table, brushing his shoulder. Sam leaned into it, glad for the contact and the warmth. As the meal ended, Dean and Cas bid their farewells and drove to the hotel on the other side of town. A safe bet, to be sure, as Gabe’s hands had started wandering a bit farther than socially acceptable as soon as they were gone.

They ended up on the roof, blanket below them and stars above, and Gabe backed Sam against the wall of the light, warm and solid behind his back, letting his hands slip beneath Sam’s shirt and dance up and down his chest. Sam groaned as his fingers found his nipple, pinching gently and shooting heat down, down, down. Sam let his head fall back against the wall with a thunk as Gabe’s lips mouthed at Sam’s jaw and down his neck, teeth grazing his Adam’s apple before sucking a bruise into the dip of his collarbone. His fingers moved to the buttons of Sam’s shirt, kissing and licking and biting down his chest as it was exposed to the night air. Sam prayed, beneath the stars, prayed to the night and the night weaver, for this to never end, for night to last forever and Gabriel stilled above him.

“Did you just…?” Gabe gasped.

Sam nodded with a grin. He’d have to experiment with that later. For now, Sam tangled his hands in Gabe’s hair, tugging on it as a moan slipped from Gabe’s lips, and pulled him back into a kiss. When he got Gabe’s shirt off, he turned him around so he could finally see the North Star tattoo that lay between the soft skin of his shoulders. Sam traced it with his fingers, with his tongue, pressed a kiss to the center of the ink. Goosebumps broke out across Gabriel’s skin and Sam kissed down the ridges of his spine, to the hollow of his back, down, down, down. If they lost all their clothes and Gabriel made love to him beneath his dancing stars, there was no one around to see it happen. And if they went for round two as the morning sun peeked over the horizon, dusting their skin in gold and warmth, that was no one’s business but their own.

They stood at the railing together as the morning woke. Gabriel, face turned towards the sky and wearing Sam’s sweater from the night before. “Did I ever tell you about my favorite constellation?”

Sam shook his head, sleepy and warm beneath the rising sun. His fingers were dancing softly against Gabe’s palm, hip against the steel.

“It’s called The Line.”

“Yeah, and what’s its story?” Sam asked, with a smile.

“Once, long ago, the man who puts the stars in the sky fell in love with a human. He didn’t mean to. No one ever does. And the human fell in love right back. And though their love story was epic, it was not long, and the human left the Night Weaver after a while, leaving him heartbroken. He didn’t think he deserved the love, you see. The man may have been a human, but he was like the sun. But, their hearts could not be kept apart, not even by the line of stars laid in the sky in warning. They found each other again and from then on, the Night Weaver carved his name into one star, the human’s on another, and he put them on opposite ends of The Line, a reminder to anyone below or above that they would be forever together, forever connected, and forever there in the stars.”

Sam listened, pressed a kiss to Gabe’s forehead, again longing for the night so he could see the stars find their home again. He’d settle for spending the day with Gabe. He’d always settle for that.

“Do you think this is how the stars feel when they find home? Like this, like us?” Sam whispered.

“Nah, they’re alone out there,” Gabe said, “and burning. We’re happier than the stars.”

Sam smiled. Happier than the stars they’d be.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Come say hi on tumblr [ here](http://kibberswrites.tumblr.com/) or in the comments below! I'd love to hear from you :) 
> 
> Also, give some love to [ TeenyTinyTony ](http://teenytinytony.tumblr.com/) for the absolutely amazing artwork above!


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